Israel isn't the socialist country that it once was, but it still has something of a collectivist spirit and there are still Israeli movie makers who-- as one critic complained maybe a decade ago-- eschew the traditional central character in favor of a movie about "the guys." In "Antenna," there's no central character we can identify with. But in this case we can't even identify with "the guys" very enthusiastically. The movie revolves around three brothers who are all leading messed-up lives. We see them all falling short of their personal goals, and not because they stand up for principle or are just too eccentric in some lovable way. Maybe (the dialogue hints) they're all indirectly scarred because their father is a Holocaust survivor.
Some of Israel's best actors are in the movie-- a couple even in surprisingly small roles-- and they hold attention every moment, while the story plays out believably. Maybe too believably for a movie that's marketed as partly comical. Or maybe I'm just too old to look at matters like backaches and diabetes and forgetfulness at a sufficient remove. But I didn't see much to charm, entice, or amuse the audience, and I kind of fear for the movie's fate because while it holds up a mirror to society in a constructive and artistically skillful way, I don't envision crowds taking it to their hearts. I hope I'm wrong. It deserves to be seen, and it has enough plot for a whole TV season packed into it.
Another way in which the movie could have increased audience identification, at least in Israel, would have been to provide a sense of geography. I'm pretty sure I glimpsed Rothschild Boulevard, in Tel Aviv, at one point, but the characters live in various places and we don't ever get a clear sense of where. Maybe I've been spoiled because so many Israeli films these days are partly sponsored by municipal budgets and make sure to identify their settings, but I've come to like the grounding that a known setting affords to a movie.
