The Silver Platter

When the poet Haim Heffer asked Perlov to make a half hour film in memory of the soldiers who fell in the War of Independence, Perlov decided to base the film entirely on stills, songs and the heroic poetry of the period. Perlov spent long hours choosing by himself the photographs, almost all taken by the soldiers themselves, some of whom never returned from that war. As in all his films, Perlov was trying to avoid the conventional, ceremonial approach to the subject. The austere simplicity of the elements he used, the rhythmic succession of the stills, the correct undertone of Koby Meidan in reading the text and the music composed by Shem-Tov Levi contribute to the unique style of the film. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, himself a young soldier in the Independence War, saw the film at the premiere screening, a short time before he was assassinated in 1995. Deeply moved, he approached Perlov and thanked him personally for it.