Or (My Treasure)

REVIEW
Eighteen-year-old Or collects discarded cans and bottles as she walks through Tel Aviv, cashing them in at a recycling center. When not in school, she washes dishes at a small restaurant. The family who owns the restaurant provides Or with most of her meals, and gives her food for her ailing mother, Ruthie. In an attempt to change the dismal pattern of their lives, Or lines up a housekeeping job for her mom, and tries locking Ruthie in their apartment to keep her from walking the streets as a prostitute. But the best of intentions can do little against lethargy, societal prohibitions and force of habit. Or is not fully aware of the degree to which her mother’s work has influenced her own responses to life, until the one pure thing in her marginal circumstances is denied her. Not yet out of her teen years, she is already trapped in diminished expectations and well-established patterns of abuse. Dana Ivgy delivers a subtle yet potent performance as the hapless Or: she’s mother to her mother and keeps their household running; you sense that she never had the childhood her mother never left. She heads an ensemble who gives uniformly natural, unselfconscious portrayals. The film has an almost documentary immediacy and presents an unvarnished reality without apology or amelioration. Or is an unexpected and arresting film experience.