The Children's House

Tamar Feingold's documentary The Children's House effectively captures the power of art to initiate personal healing and spark a collective dialogue about a shared past. In the summer of 2005, a group of kibbutz-born artists living in Tel Aviv were invited to participate in an exhibit called “Communal Sleeping,” built around their childhood experiences on an Israeli kibbutz during the 1950s. The film combines ample footage of each artist's creative process during the weeks leading up to the installation, archival footage of promotional films from the 1950s detailing the educational goals of the kibbutz (to raise an independent “kibbutznik” who understands the concept of sharing), and interviews with former communal mothers and kibbutz workers, as well as the artists themselves, whose painful memories are also expressed in their art. It becomes clear that for this group, the kibbutz was a well-intentioned but ultimately misguided educational experiment, as evidenced by the artists' reflections on their sense of isolation and abandonment as children and its effect on their current interpersonal relationships. One artist's work involves the recreation of a kibbutz common room (she discusses how her environment was more like a parent to her than the tenuous relationship she experienced with her mother), while another describes his fierce commitment to being there when his children awaken each morning as a response to his own fears of greeting each day as a child without the comfort of his family. A fascinating historical/sociological documentary, The Children's House is highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (A. Cantú)