Aran Patinkin

Doll's Tears

The World of modeling stuns the eyes of girls and women since time immemorial. The life of models seems glamorous: international society, tremendous profits in a few hours of work, everlasting beauty, shiny wardrobes in which a lot of money was invested, flights around the Globe, staying in western cultural centers, pastimes and rest. Their world seems the same in Hollywood programs in the television. But what is this world really? How looks the life of a model and what is her way of life while the majority of the models would never be international models?

The film follows the preliminary attempts of teenage girls to try and enter this luminous world. At the start of the film we get acquainted with several girls that arrive to an interview in the 'Image' model agency. Betty, the manager of the agency, receives them whole-heartedly, explains them what is expected of them and how to behave in their first steps in this world. Some girls are invited to participate in the competition 'the face of the 90th'. This competition is organized by the newspaper Woman's World. It is on a national scale competition that ends in a Hollywood style show. The young girls that do not know how to walk on the stage and how to demonstrate security and beauty in front of the camera lenses that examine every defect learn under a close guidance the ABC of modeling. The camera is following their unripe exercises, and the special relationships, which develop between them at the time of the rehearsals.

Figures from the world of modeling peek into the film during the preparations to the competition. Fashion photographers, 'new models hunters' that arrive from United States and France and test the candidacy in a critical eye, delegates of models and senior models. Those figures are interviewed and they introduce a balance between the dream of the young models and the reality, which is grayer.

 The most important event in the movie for the young girls is the competition. Winning the title 'the face of the 90th ' will open for them not only the possibilities of modeling inside the country but rather this is flight ticket to participating in the international competition of 'the face of the 90th ' in United States.

In the theater hall in Jerusalem compete 20 participants. For them this is the gate to the glamorous life. The young girls are very tense. They have to walk on the track, to ride on roller blades, to model different clothes and to convince the judges that they have the compatible beauty and character to become models. Anastasia, an immigrant from Russia is selected in the first place, Brigit, an Arab girl, is her first deputy and Isabelle, Polish Christian, is her second deputy.

After the competition the camera visits the girls' homes and tries to absorb who are the future models. The film follows the life of five young models: The three winners of the competition (Anastasia, Brigit and Isabelle) naughty Avia, and Ricky, the veteran amongst the participants, who is mature, clever and full of humor.

In addition to the interviews about their difficulties, wishes and life the camera escorts them into scenes from their everyday lives. We get acquainted to the childish characters of Avia and her girl friend Maskit. They walk in the market, cook, make jokes, blab and giggle. Inside Avia's house we get acquainted to her friend Ritchie, with whom she lives, who is a modern artist. While he explains his drawings and his work the camera absorbs the ambience in their house.

We travel together with a reporter from The Voice of the North to the house of Brigit, 17, in her village in the Galilee. The camera follows the interview that was made under traditional surveillance of her brothers. By the same token we tour in her room in which there are dolls and posters as in the room of every young girl. Her innocence and simplicity touches the reporter's heart as well as that of the spectator.

 From here until the end of the film the real world of the models is exposed. The dreams are tested in the reality difficulties. In the center stands Betty who navigates her models to success.  In a conversation with Anastasia Betty explains her that she has to change her habits, to eat less and even to inject silicone to her lips. Anastasia is shocked.

The camera follows other real activity of the models. We attend a meeting to request work at a clothes agency (Anastasia); Photographing clothes on the seaside (Brigit); photographing a session for the cover of Woman World with the three winners; photographing an advertisement to the film Four brides and a Funeral, and another candid interview in the agency with Maayan, an international model from the agency that 'jumped' to the country from her house in Paris. The interview discovers their tentative world and the feeling of helplessness against the ticking of the clock. The work is hard and the praise is not so easy to achieve and for many models is simply impossible.

Gradually, until the end of the film, the actual picture of the work of simple models is discovered, while in the background there is the antithesis between reality and dream.