Party-zan, video, 7:30min., 2010

In Party-zan, Ariela Plotkin composes a dream-like historical narrative in which she, a young partisan, is inspired to learn the art of fighting by her grandfather, Zvi Hirsch. His influence on her is insinuated by the deer horns springing from her beret (Zvi and Hirsch denote “deer” in Hebrew and German, respectively). The young woman relies on her grandfather’s teachings to overcome the forces of evil threatening to annihilate her. The elderly man is a source of inspiration, as he himself led a symbolic fight against the Nazis and a concrete, private struggle with cancer. The fact that a human being is named after an animal- in this case a deer- enriches the work with a surprising and very special significance. The deer, an animal that has traditionally been chased and hunted for centuries, takes upon itself here an unprecedented role: it provides the moral strength required by its young descendent to fight back its enemies.

Plotkin’s work reflects the complex relationship that exists between the grandfather and his grandchild: on a personal level, besides the love and mutual support that they give to each other, there is also the fact that they are both survivors of evil. On an historical level, they both share the credit for saving a culture and a tradition.