Almost 50 years after he directed his first film in Paris, and two years after his death, David Perlov has returned to the French capital. Last week, a retrospective of his films opened at the Georges Pompidou Center museum of modern art in Paris; it will continue through November 4. At the entrance to the museum, visitors are informed of a huge exhibit of works by the Dada movement now taking place; in another exhibit, photos from the 10 countries that joined the European Union in 2004 are on display; and at the entrance to the theaters where Perlov's films are being screened, there is a display of documents related to his life - newspaper clippings, photos, paintings that he created and documents in his handwriting.

The retrospective's opening ceremony was simple, intimate, suited to Perlov's works. There wasn't an empty seat in the theater. Philippe Alain-Michaud, the museum's cinema curator, who until a year ago served in the same post at the Louvre, introduced Perlov and called him "one of the greatest documentarians in the world." Next spoke Perlov's daughter, Yael Perlov, a film editor and producer. "To present my father's films, here at the Center, is a very moving experience, perhaps because of the importance Paris had for him," she said.

The retrospective is called, "Israeli Chronicles by a Filmmaker Born in Brazil." This is ostensibly a name that distances Perlov from Israel, linking him to his country of birth and turning him into an observer only. Originally, Alain-Michaud wanted to call the event simply, "Israeli Chronicles." He believes that Perlov's look at Israel is different, optimistic and full of humor. But Mira Perlov, the artist's widow, and his daughter Yael, requested that another element be added. "Already in [his film] `Diary,'" Yael Perlov reminds us, "David described himself as `a foreigner here, a foreigner there, a foreigner everywhere.' He was not a sabra, and not Israeli born," she said. Already in the first chapter of "Diary," he travels to his family in Brazil, and the sixth chapter consists entirely of photographs from there.

	Advertisement

"I asked to change the name," says Mira Perlov, "because David, in some place, always remained a Brazilian. He always had foreignness in him, and he looked at reality from the outside."

A notebook of paintings

Perhaps more than Israel, and certainly more than Brazil, Paris was of decisive importance for Perlov's work. He came there from Sao Paulo after World War II, and in 1952 he began to study painting at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.

There he met fellow student Marguerite Bonnevay, a young woman named after her aunt. One day in 1956, Bonnevay showed Perlov a notebook of paintings that her aunt had painted when she was only 12 years old, a few years before she died of tuberculosis in the late 19th century.

The notebook contained dozens of paintings, all of them in lively and cheerful colors, with figures of people and animals. The paintings excited Perlov; perhaps it was the colors, perhaps it was hard to believe that a 12-year-old girl had painted them or perhaps because of their fascinating sarcasm and the sharp criticism that the girl expresses toward townspeople, part of the French bourgeois elite.

Perlov decided to create his first film based on those paintings. He had already decided to switch from painting to cinema. He always said that this came after seeing "Zero for Conduct" by Jean Vigo at the Paris Cinematheque, and after having known and worked with the legendary manager of that same cinematheque, Henri Langlois, the man whose dismissal triggered the student riots of 1968.

At the museum there is a list of some 40 people who contributed to the production of the film "Old Aunt China" (1957); next to each name, there is a sum. It turns out that Jeanne Moreau ("Jules and Jim" and "The Bride Wore Black"), donated 5,000 old francs to Perlov to make the film, as did Nobel Prize laureate poet Czeslaw Milos, American sculptor Alexander Calder and poet Jacques Prevert.

At the beginning of the film there is a caption with Prevert's words, telling the spectators what they are about to see. He tells the story of that same girl, Marguerite Bonnevay, whose illness was incubating in her body, and how she "used a pencil as a magic wand with which she changed people." Prevert explains to viewer that they will see characters based on the people who lived in the girl's hometown. "What you are about to see," writes Prevert, "is a chronicle of incidents from her life and that of her town, including events in the town and the deep secrets of its inhabitants."

Watching this film reveals that already in his first cinematic work, Perlov was Perlov: That same artist with a fascinating and unique cinematic language. The film consists entirely of the girl's paintings, and the narrator tells a story based on them. The main character is Aunt China, the president of the Salvation Army. The girl's criticism of those around her is expressed, for example, in a painting of a bride wearing white, with mice hanging from her veil; or in a painting in which the aunt's donkey defecates money in the street. The only disappointment in the film is that Perlov, whose voice is so characteristic of his works, is not the narrator. The role is filled by actor Jacques Brunius, who starred in "Une Partie de Campagne" by Jean Renoir, but it doesn't compare with the sound of Perlov's voice.

Another surprise in the film, which goes to show how early Perlov's genius was recognized in France, is the music. Mira Perlov says that through a member of the Dada movement, Perlov met the renowned musician Germaine Tailleferre. After a short conversation, she agreed to compose the music to accompany the film, free of charge. She composed music for seven instruments. The flautist is Jean-Pierre Rampal, who later became world famous in the field of classical music.

The museum will also be screening "My Stills" (2003), Perlov's last film, which was presented at the Jerusalem International Film Festival competition months before his death; "In Jerusalem" (1963), which in honor of the exhibition at the Pompidou underwent a restoration that reveals sections that up to now could barely be seen; and of course, the six chapters of "Diary." They have also been restored, thanks to funding from the Mifal Hapayis national lottery, the Israel Film Fund, the Jerusalem Cinematheque, the Foreign Ministry, the Sitkovsky Fund and the Israeli Film Service.

The new copies that were made of Perlov's films will finally make it possible to issue all of his films - first and foremost "Diary" - in DVD format. This will make it easier for old and new audiences to see the work of the greatest of Israeli documentary filmmakers.