Or (My Treasure): film treads gingerly around prostitution issue

Keren Yedaya, “Or (My Treasure)” (2004)
 Source: www.allmovie.com
Debut feature from director Keren Yedaya, this Israeli film is a study of a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship dominated by the mother’s career “choice”: street prostitution. For lack of a better word, I chose “choice” and put it in inverted commas as the movie is unclear as to whether the mother Ruthie (Ronit Elkabetz) made the choice to be a hooker or just drifted, or was forced, into prostitution under circumstances she had no control over. The film takes the point of view of Or (Dana Ivgy), Ruthie’s teenage daughter, and can be seen as a coming-of-age film of a despairing kind. We follow Or as she goes through her daily routine in her working-class neighbourhood, trying to juggle schoolwork with working at a restaurant at nights, collecting bottles for recycling and keeping her mother out of trouble. Mum has just left hospital and already Or has lined up a cleaning job to keep the woman occupied and bring in some money to pay the rent which is already in arrears. Over the course of the movie though, it’s apparent Ruthie has little appetite for cleaning work, however easy it looks, and soon drifts back into prostitution out of habit. This drives Or to desperation as the bills mount up and she breaks up with her boyfriend Ido and joins an escort agency.
The effects of prostitution on Ruthie and Or are devastating and dehumanising: Ruthie must have worked the streets for so long that she is incapable of interacting with men in ways that don’t involve trading sexual favours for something needed, like repairs to the apartment where she and Or live or getting more time from the landlord to pay the rent. She seems desensitised by both her work and its brutal and dangerous consequences: in one scene, she comes home from a tryst with blood streaming down her legs yet seems not to care enough to see a doctor. In a mental fug during her waking hours, Ruthie is a child who must be told what to do and Or is the mother who keeps dragging her back from the front door to stop her from walking the streets in her skimpy outfits that scream “hooker”. When Ruthie is at home, she either sleeps or watches TV listlessly and whines to her daughter when she is there. Or in her interactions with Ido (Meshar Cohen) and other boys is falling into the same trap as Ruthie did: she sleeps with Ido, causing friction between Ido’s mother and Ruthie, in order to be close to him and can’t say no to an old boyfriend on leave from the Israeli Army when he demands a kiss and a blow-job. As Ruthie continues her downward slide back into prostitution, she becomes increasingly robotic and casually brushes off Or’s pleas not to return to her old ways. Or herself shows signs of emotional withdrawal and desensitisation when she pushes Ido away, seduces the landlord and, after joining the escort agency, services an elderly client who demands anal sex of her.
I’ve seen Elkabetz in “The Band’s Visit” and “La Fille du RER”, and it’s hard to believe that the child-like zombie padding around the apartment in underwear or dressed pathetically in boob-tube and hot pants with gaudy make-up painted all over her face wandering the city streets at night is the same actor who plays the elegant lawyer (“La Fille …”) or the helpful shop-owner who aids the stranded Egyptian musicians (“The Band’s Visit”): proof if any is needed that Elkabetz is a versatile character actor whose own personality quirks, if she has any, disappear completely in the character she plays. Ivgy who appears in nearly every scene holds up her side of acting very well, particularly near the end where she is fighting to hold back tears as she watches her mother paint her face. Together these two actors anchor the entire film, no small challenge even for someone as experienced as Elkabetz, and so it’s all the more amazing for me to discover that this is Ivgy’s first film where she plays a main character forced into a harrowing situation.
There are three significant moments in the film where Or laughs, and laughs abundantly: when she is with Ruthie at home watching TV, enjoying each other’s company and free of all cares; when she is with Ido in his room before she gives herself to him freely; and when she describes to the girls at school her sexual encounter with the ageing landlord. These moments can be interpreted as transition points in Or’s transformation from innocent, sensitive girl to world-weary, cynical adult; in the first moment, the laughter is genuine and spontaneous, in the second moment a little less so, and in the third moment, the laughter seems forced and a bit cynical.
The people around Or seem sympathetic to her problems but no-one suggests she contact a social welfare officer or an Israeli government or private equivalent to seek help for herself and Ruthie. Ido’s mother, confronting Ruthie and Or in their home, doesn’t suggest Or and Ido should seek sex education counselling; she simply wants them apart. Perhaps the people in Or’s neighbourhood distrust the government for some reason or are unaware of what’s available to help people in need. Perhaps the Israeli government has cut back on funding social services in neighbourhoods such as where Ruthie and Or live. The hospital where Ruthie is simply dumps her outside its doors and offers no further support. Whatever the reason, Or is on her own struggling to save her mother from herself and the girl is neglecting her own needs and education. (Though it could be said that Or is her own worst enemy in a way as she rejects Ido’s offer of help and refuses to see the school careers advisor.) Society as portrayed in the film seems self-absorbed and atomistic: the opening scene in the film shows pedestrians and commuters going about their business in a busy city street, all of them appearing oblivious to one another’s existence or condition and absorbed in their own mental worlds. Apart from Ido who genuinely cares about Or’s well-being, the men in the film are either predatory, taking advantage of Ruthie or Or in some way, or just plain ineffective.
Certainly the film is critical of the effects of prostitution on prostitutes themselves and their families – Or and Ruthie are not condemned for their actions and Ruthie appears driven by forces and urges she can’t understand and control – but its teenage-based scope and minimal fly-on-the-wall fixed-frame exposition of the problem of women’s sexual exploitation in Israel and what that might suggest about the position of women generally in that country limit its effectiveness as a plea for social and political change and reform. The issue is too personalised and the focus is very much on whether Or can wrench herself away from Ruthie and get out of the prostitution rut before it consumes her spirit and youth as it did her mother’s. The ambiguous ending suggests she might still have a chance while she’s young but the choice that faces Or is too cruel: dump her mother and save herself, risking censure and self-guilt along the way for abandoning Ruthie, or sink into her mother’s abyss. The solution for Or has to be a win-win situation for herself and for Ruthie but the events of the film are set up in a way that prevents such an outcome.
It’s hard not to escape the feeling that as social criticism, “Or (My Treasure)” treads very gingerly around prostitution and how it traps women and girls. The film risks being seen as having a conservative and narrow agenda about what can be done (it’s up to the individual to save herself, society has no responsibility to help people like Ruthie and Or break their particular vicious cycle) or exploiting the issue for titillation purposes.

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