50 years after Givat Halfon: "Hill 338" does not recreate the magic
"Hill 338" is released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the classic "Givat Halfon Eina Ona." However, unlike the original, this new film fails to capture the same comedic alchemy, feeling more like a hollow tribute than a genuine successor.
"Hill 338" is released to celebrate the 50th birthday of "Givat Halfon Eina Ona" (Halfon Hill Doesn't Answer), directed by Assi Dayan based on a script he wrote with Naftali Alter. It is not a particularly happy celebration. First of all, they missed the date: "Givat Halfon" was released at the end of September 1976, in the days when new Israeli films were distributed during the Tishrei holidays and not in the summer.
In fact, the film's shooting only finished in early August, and it was released with alarming speed a month and a half later, just seven months after the release of Dayan and Alter's previous film, "Yofi Shel Tsarot" (Beauty of Troubles). A total of one million tickets were sold for two Assi Dayan films in 1976. "Hill 338" celebrates this festive birthday with a stale cake from the supermarket. It is unclear if it is a sequel, a remake, or a tribute sketch.
If you watch "Givat Halfon" today, you will discover that it is a very sloppy film; the low budget and the speed of production are evident in every shot. But these details are secondary, because for 50 years, as anyone who watches it will admit, it is one of the funniest Israeli films ever made. It is complete anarchy, supreme nonsense, a cabaret of words, and a barrage of punchlines. Assi Dayan at that time had only one requirement for his films: to make people laugh. He was 100 percent committed to laughter and gave up on refinement or aesthetics.
For the audience, "Givat Halfon Eina Ona" was first and foremost a new film by HaGashash HaHiver, the most successful comedy trio of that time. Dayan ensured that the script was written in fluent "Gashashit" and based it on their sketches: Shayke Levi played Victor Hasson, Poli (Israel Poliakov) played Sergio Costanza, and Gavri Banai was the straight man in this madness. It was a successful combination of military satire and romantic comedy.
Today, Israel's ministers of culture like to threaten Israeli films that criticize IDF soldiers, but they shortsightedly enjoy the fact that the most beloved hits of the Israeli public from the seventies were precisely the military comedies, in which there were no heroic soldiers, but only chaos and lack of discipline. Since then, the most successful genre in Israeli cinema has been the military comedy—from "HaLahaka" (The Band) to "Zero Motivation." "Hill 338" may be the first film in this genre to remain without an audience.
The saddest part of "Hill 338" is the reliance on old hits. They play "Ten Lasim Et HaRosh Al Diona" (Let's Put Our Head on a Dune) again and again. Couldn't they have invested in writing new songs? The audience loves "Givat Halfon" rightfully so, but it is not evident that the creators of "Hill 338" love it. If there is something that Dayan and the Gashashim taught us, it is that comedy is made when everyone is synchronized. Instead of hiring talented writers and directors to create something fresh, they chose to fill the film with quotes from the original that arrive without any context. It is hard to be funny when you are just copying the past.
