The release of two distinct productions, Checkout and Fauda, is testing the appetite for Israeli spy stories in a challenging climate. Checkout, a dark Israeli comedy, and Fauda, an Israeli action thriller, have arrived in the United States this month. A Pew Research Center survey found that 60% of Americans have an unfavorable view of Israel, while 37% view the country favorably.
Checkout, an indie film, opened in Manhattan to a sold-out audience on September 17. The film's writer, director, and executive producer, Jonathan Dekel, described the production as a "stalwart of indie cinema". Dekel has said the film's six-year production was almost as difficult as the journey of its protagonist. The film was shot in Ukraine in November 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The film's protagonist, Dov, is an American-born New Yorker who moved to Israel and is now about to retire from the Mossad. The story revolves around Dov's encounter with Mossad's number one target, an arch-terrorist code-named Gilgamesh. Dekel described the film as a "weird weekend in a hotel where these two middle-aged men, spy-versus-spy, try to figure out who they are".
Josh Pais, who plays Dov, said his character is a man searching for meaning in his life – and who comes to believe he can find it by tracking down and stopping a terrorist. Shai Satran, the movie's co-writer, believes this is the "perfect moment for a movie about the Israeli intelligence community and an operation gone bad".
Fauda, the Israeli series, has been an international success since its Netflix debut in 2016. Its fifth season, which arrived on Netflix on September 8, deals directly with the aftermath of the 7 October Hamas attack. Lior Raz, the show's creator, co-writer, and star, said he was genuinely surprised by the show's reception in unlikely places, including Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates.
Raz said the backlash against Israel was a campaign orchestrated by radical activists and Israel's enemies. The latest season of Fauda is in part an attempt to depict the Israeli perspective for those open to nuance. Raz hopes it would open people's eyes to see what happened on 7 October.
Although its reception abroad is hard to gauge, the latest season was a hit in Israel, becoming the most-watched season of any show in the history of Israel's Yes network. Lacking the backing of a streaming giant, Checkout will have to work harder to find an audience. Dekel wondered if the difficulty he faced was because it is an Israeli movie or because it involves Jews.
Key points
- Checkout and Fauda test the appetite for Israeli spy stories in a challenging climate.
- The productions face scrutiny abroad over Israel's conduct since 7 October.
- Fauda's fifth season deals directly with the aftermath of the 7 October Hamas attack.
