Cannes 2025: With 'Yes,' Nadav Lapid bids Israel farewell again

LeMonde

21-05-2025

For a host of reasons linked to the tragic current events of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – including the subordination of aesthetic judgment to political agendas, official or unofficial boycotts and general caution in the face of an explosively polarized debate – the presence of Israeli films at international film festivals has undeniably become rare. That is why there has been such anticipation surrounding the selection of Yes, Nadav Lapid's new feature, at the Directors' Fortnight, where it is being shown on Thursday, May 22. The film follows an artist couple – Y., a jazz musician, and his wife Jasmine, a dancer – who give the impression that they have never considered their art as anything other than a form of prostitution to the powers that have long corrupted a country under the banner of utopian socialism: rampant consumerism, unbridled hedonism and ultra-nationalism.
This spectacle, which the film pushes to the point of nausea, quickly turns into pure obscenity as the spirit of exterminatory vengeance takes hold of the nation in the wake of the carnage of October 7, 2023. In this context, Y. is tasked by several powerful figures with writing a new Israeli anthem, which is reworked from head to toe for a long night of moral reckoning. The filmmaker thus conceived the idea of writing a "musical tragedy." In fact, "the song that inspires Y. is a classic of the Israeli repertoire, celebrating the brotherhood of men during the war of independence," Lapid explained. "Adapted from a poem by Haim Gouri, it was the favorite of Yitzhak Rabin, a man of war who gave his life for the cause of peace. As can be seen in the clip I show in the film, it was transformed, in the aftermath of October 7, into a hymn of hatred, sung notably by children, calling for the eradication of Gaza."