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The Blue Lamb
$19.99
Israeli artist Menashe Kadishman: painter, sculptor, winner of the Israel Prize, a natural film hero. His beard grows wild, he has no teeth. He is half child-half elderly, half genius-half clown.
A primitive man living in a modern world, always dressed in free-flowing white cotton pants and a matching shirt. In winter he wears only a huge army coat over his cotton clothing.
Daliah Mevurach and Dani Dotan have documented his life for the past two years. Kadishman welcomes them into his home and his studio and unveils his complex family life to them. He hides nothing from the camera and reveals himself utterly, in all his complexity. Kind, warm, and generous on the one hand, rude and domineering on the other. He is a successful, world-wide renowned artist, yet he continues to pamper the image of a Tel-Aviv homeless man scavenging daily for the next source of income. He is constantly surrounded by family and friends but is a lone wolf.
The film starts at 05:00 in Kadishman’s apartment. We enter his bedroom where he lies asleep, as always, with the light on. Around him is an overflowing pile of teddy-bears and toys. The contrast between the giant, tangled-haired man sleeping amidst the soft toys captures his essence completely. At 05:30 we arrive at the Gordon swimming pool. In the dressing rooms, shamelessly and cheerfully, he and his elderly friends stand naked and compare scars. At 07:00, Kadishman is in his studio, fully concentrated, caught up in his own world, painting heads of sheep, his artistic fascination.
Kadishman is an obsessive artist. 20 years ago he decided to dedicate his life and work to depicting Israeli reality. Today, at the age of 73, he feels he has failed. “Art cannot change anything, only caress the wounds a little”, he says. Despite this, he has created many powerful Israeli symbols. A ram leaning over the dead Yitzhak Rabin, a mother lifting her son up to the heavens, heads of sheep, pecking ravens. Dripping with color and the force of Israeli reality these symbols and his works of art are celebrated around the world. Kadishman himself lives in ongoing despair that he has not the power to enforce a change. Orphaned, defeated, crying out for a lost childhood, he still gets up every morning to paint another sheep.