This contemplative approach allows a correctness in drawing the relationships between the characters. Hatufim is filmed as a natural study, it is slow and quiet.
The Israeli one, privileges emotions generated by national mourning. Hatufim, wich means abductees, questions the government and military roles in managing the liberation of the prisoners of wars. Just like Hatufim delivers the Israel nation’ prisoners from war pain, Homeland exorcises in a way the paranoia of the American nation.
Homeland embodies the psychosis the United-States is suffering after the attack.
In contrast to the Israeli version based on the psychological and familial aspect, the American producers have chosen to put the emphasis on the suspense and the post 9/11 trauma. Thus, she is determined to prove that he is linked to al-Qaeda’ network. This agent suffers from bipolar disorder and is convinced that Brody represents a threat for the United-State. He is also freed and after his heroes returning, he is suspected by Carrie Mathison, a CIA agent, to be « turned » by the enemy. This way, the three Israeli prisoners became one U.S marine, Nicholas Brody, held by al-Qaeda. Hatufim ended up in good hands, the ones of Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, executive producers of 24’.With the contribution of Gideon Raff, they changed the story a lot. Nevertheless the work to adapt it remained quite challenging.
Hatufim season 1 story series#
“ When I was writing Hatufim, I was saying to myself that it could work with an American soldier, but I wanted first the series to be Israeli, with the debates that it will necessary implicate”3 admitted Gideon Raff. It is hardly conceivable that a subject so specific to the Israeli society has been adapted for the United-States… And yet, from Hatufim, the new successful American series Homeland was born. Hatifum tries to put the Israel nation in front of its deny, showing that the “happy end”of the POW’s returning hides a taboo. He has been left with his trauma and culpability. The young Israeli-French soldier held by Hamas militant during five years has devastated international mass media when he was released in exchange of the freeing of 447 Palestinian prisoners. In Israel, everyone has a relative engaged in the army thus Israeli people feel concerned by Hatufim, it is a nation’s story as the one of Gilad Shalit. This is perhaps what explains the controversy when the series came out. Behind the fiction, there are real testimonies “When I was prisoner, without seeing nobody for days, I felt so lonely and abandoned that I was relieved when someone came to torture me”2. Through their voices, Gideon Raff allows real prisoners of war to confess and move on. Hatufim breaks this silence, Nimrod Klein and Uri Zac are the survivors’ spokespersons. “ I realized that all the rare stories about prisoners of war ended up with their return (…) in Israel, people only want to see the “happy end”, they do not want to see how prisoners of war get through their traumatize after their freeing”1 confessed the series’ creator Gideon Raff. The series tackles the destiny of prisoners of war after returning to their home country, a taboo subject in Israel. Two of them, Nimrod Klein and Uri Zach, come back alive while the third one, Amiel Ben-Horin, returns in a coffin. Hatufim, is the story of three Israeli war prisoners who are released seventeen years after their incarceration in Lebanon. Yet, who could be able to guess that behind this series 100% marked by American spirit, an Israeli television production was hidden? Known as Hatufim, the domestic series was certainly successful in its home country but could its creator, Gideon Raff, ever have imagined that his baby would become, between the hands of Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa (authors of 24′) such a bomb? Nothing could be farther from the truth! At the origins: Israeli version Hatufim – season 1 The new series has made the headlines, revealing some secrets about its foreign origins… Praised to the skies by critics and followed by a record audience (including among it President Obama!), With its 6 Emmy Awards and its 2 Golden Globe Awards in its prize-list, Homeland stands as the hit of 2012.