"Topia Communication presents:" "A film by Ayelet Dekel MichaelSharfshtein" "Producers:" "Michael Sharfshtein Moshe Edery and Leon Edery" "Liat Glick" "Avital Dicker" "Shiri Heller" "Eden Harel" "Natali Atiya" "Shira Farber" "Smadar Kilchinsky" "Dalia Shimko" "Cinematographers:" "Amit Yasur" "Udi Golan" "Amnon Salomon" "Original Music by:" "Tom Sharfshtein" "Sound Designer:" "Israel David" " Mix Room" "Editor:" "Ronit Porat" "Director  Scriptwriter:" "Ayelet Dekel" "There is no other activity that begins with such great hope and expectations and yet, fails so often... as love." ""Bye Bye to Love"" "7 conversations about breaking up" "I wanted..." "I wanted to understand... where the energy of love disappears too." "When you fall in love, When you say:" ""Thank you, God, for giving me the ability" ""to feel this uniqueness, that I'm worth." "I exist." ""I feel." "I'm loved." ""I'm... here."" "And, then, the same feeling, supreme feeling of worth that you feel via this external thing, you feel that you exist..." "the same feeling, when it ends, is the same feeling, where you suddenly feel that you're not there, that you're dead, that you're being left." "That you don't... exist anymore." "That you're not loved." "That you're not wanted." "And what I wanted to ask in Bye-Bye, mainly, is to understand..." "how come people... why can't we preserve..." "a good thing?" "How can it make sense that we're so destructive?" "How can it make sense that the ego controls us so much?" "How come we don't appreciate this thing, called keeping a good thing going." "Where?" "What happens inside us, in our souls?" "How does it suddenly end..." "all the... all this magic?" "I put an add in the newspaper that I was looking for women... divorced women, with kids." "Apart from the fact that each one of them is amazingly beautiful..." "I saw something in every one of them that reminded me of a childhood experience." "Shira, Doctor, Divorced + 2" "Yael, Lawyer, Divorced + 1" "Noa, Teacher, Divorced + 1" "Lianna, Lecturer, Divorced + 2" "Charlie, DJ, Divorced + 1" "Racheli, Cosmetician, Divorced + 2" "Alex, Stripper, Divorced + 2" "My father left my mother when she was 4 months' pregnant with me." "I was born in a break-up." "I was brought up to believe that men are shit, relationships..." "are always obsessive, love... there's no such thing." "It's always a fantasy, whose time is like the clock on the wall here, borrowed time which ends like a ticking bomb." "Doesn't last." "I tried to ask, or actually to understand," "how love dies." "I can't seem to understand this." "I can't understand how come my father wanted me and walked out, and I was born into a situation of this great lack, which I've known from the day I was born." "Cheers." "I've prepared 7 rules for this evening:" "We don't stop." "We don't lie." "We devote ourselves." "We don't fear." "We don't judge." "We won't get mad." "We understand." "I went to Edinburgh once, to a festival." "And I went into this pub." "And there was a guy sitting there." "With a girl." "And I looked at him, and he looked at me, and I fell in love." "That's very embarrassing, isn't it?" "It's like..." "I didn't even know he was Israeli." "He was studying abroad then." "I was studying in Israel." "There was a period when we were..." "I'd go over there, he'd come here..." "And that's it." "Then he came to Israel, and we got married." "It was very nice, very classic." "Very white dress and all that..." "My parents were very happy..." "No, I was very happy too." "I was very happy." " What, the Cinderella fantasy?" "No, I really believed in this thing." "A wedding and all." "And... everything was fine." "It should have worked." "And a certain point, he was very unhappy in his job." "He was very unhappy... he became a lawyer against his will, actually." "I'm a fervent lawyer, a passionate one." "I enjoy every moment." "I feel I'm on a mission." "And I really pushed him." "I told him: "Forget it." "Do whatever you like." ""Do some soul-searching, be whatever you like."" "I gave him a lot of freedom." "And I was very proud of that freedom, and gradually we each developed a very private life, a very..." "I was doing my thing, he was doing his." "I was with my friends, he was with his friends." "No one knew where the other one was." "And..." "I became a very lonely person." "A person who was really... not only lonely, but a bit..." "invisible as well." "He took this spiritual direction, he started taking meditation classes and shiatsu classes, started going to workshops, and the he wanted to go to India..." "I was supporting our home, I... and I understood all the time, and I accepted all the time, and appreciated all the time, and it was his right, and so on and so forth... and he stopped having sex with me," "because it's not sexy." "It's not sexy... someone who's..." " Strong." " A she-woman." "Yes!" "It "castrated" him..." "So... that really frustrated me." "I'm a very sexual woman..." "It castrated you..." "Totally." "And... that really started getting me down to an extent where all we ever talked about was when will it happen, how will it happen, and..." "I became desperate!" "I turned into a sex beggar!" "It wasn't the love that died." "It was lust that died." "It was the passion that died." "And then the question whether love can exist without passion came up." "Two people who love each other very much." "Very much." "Very much." "I couldn't imagine myself without him." "I couldn't imagine him without me!" "And then I said I'd have sex with other men, and I expected it would wake him up, and that he'd fight for me..." "Don't cry, Sophie." " No." "I'm not crying." "And that he'd protest!" "And he said: "Okay."" "Now, I'm a Taurus." "When someone waves something at me, I lunge..." "So I did it." "And then I came back home..." "I'm against lying." "And then he looked at me, and he knows me... in and out, and I know him in and out too." "And he said: "Were you with someone." And I said: "Yes."" "And he went back to meditating." "And the I realized I didn't have anything to look for there, anymore." "Simple as that." "And that was that." "And I walked out." "Actually, he walked out." "I mean, I walked out, in the sense of saying:" ""Let's end this torture."" "And he said: "All right."" "And we did it in such a gentlemanly way that it makes you wanna puke!" "What we're looking for in love is... the feeling of belonging." "The feeling that... we're doing this together." "That we're living together." "That we're building our lives together, that we're..." "So where does all this promise disappear to?" "Where does it disappear to?" "La-la-land." "It goes there." "It also holds true there." "In the beginning, we believe it..." "Excuse me..." " Endorphins..." "It's chemical." "It's simply chemical." "When you're in love, it's chemical." "You're on a pill..." "So it is time." "It's borrowed time, limited, budgeted time." " Of course." "You have to..." " Until the fantasy dissolves." "And that's it." "You have to distinguish between "being in love" and "love"." "They're two different things." " Exactly." " Right." "Two completely different things." "Well, we realized that a long time ago." " Yes, but..." "It's nothing new." " She said that when you're in love, it's chemistry." "She said it's borrowed time." "That's not the same thing." "Yes, being in love is definitely borrowed time." "Absolutely." "So what's chemical about it?" " Love is a changing thing." "It's not a static thing." "We change." "Our love changes." "So how can you be with the same person if we're changing all the time?" " So how can you promise to spend your whole life with that person?" "But who said that love and living your whole life with someone are the same?" "You've got to start... breaking down the things and terms you were brought up and raised on." "So do all the separated women here still love their ex-husbands?" "I do." " Me too." "I don't." " I don't." "Not at all." "Long before the separation." " Of course." "When you have a good relationship you're completely free." "Many kitschy songs were written about this, you know... that a relationship is something in which you develop... it enriches you, it... you can breathe, you soar, you do what you really want to do... your career shows a lot of success... as does your creation." "So I don't understand..." " It's something that gives life!" "Not something that kills!" " So I don't understand how it breaks up." "How it suddenly collapses?" " Yes." "Because everything actually seems to be temporary here, but love... apparently dies when we're young, like... it doesn't manage to last a whole life, until you're 80." "In the past getting divorced was the end of the world." "Not so long ago, by the way." "And people who were divorced were perceived as total failures." "A feeling of..."Wow..."" "And you don't feel this is a failure?" "No." "What is it, then?" "Look, life is just like a train-ride with a bunch of stops..." "It's another stop." "At one point you're going uphill, and then you're going down..." "Or there's a power failure and the train stops..." " Look, it's a failure," "Absolutely." "There's this feeling of:" ""I wish things had worked out..."" "But I don't want to accept this failure." "I want to grow on account of it and not to mourn because of it!" "All right." "If I perceive it as a failure, I'll have to perceive myself as a failure, my life as a failure, and I don't want to." "I'm making a choice." "Of course I felt like a failure." "And immense sorrow..." " Still." "I still do." "And I'll continue feeling so all the time." "And my son asks me every day:" "Why, why, why?" "Actually, I also ask myself why." "Like, I think I'm a charming woman." "Why did he get tired of me?" "I don't know." ""Little lies, silent lies" ""Sleep in our heart" ""On purple water-lilies and sundry plants of pond and lake" ""They float silently down the stream" ""With shut eyes..." ""Little lies, silent lies" ""Sleep in our heart" ""And a bright light rises and floats in the room" ""You know who I am..." ""I know who you are."" "Everything's all right." "About a month ago, I started taking... anti-depressives... which I don't think have any effect..." "I don't know..." "I don't know how it works..." "How it's supposed to erase... this feeling of nothingness in which I live." "I don't understand how big, happy things like... pregnancy and childbirth... my life's climax... contract in comparison with the feeling of his rejection." "I really wanted to be a mother." "I really love my child." "My angel..." "I don't regret the decision at all." "I regret the way." "His... running away from me..." "His depreciation..." "My dependency." "I lay on the sofa every night, waiting for him to come back." "Just to see him... come in, take a shower, get dressed, and go out again." "Without asking how I'm doing." "How my day was... whether I need help... company." "He didn't really want to become a father, I guess..." "And when I became a mother, he didn't really want me, and then... the fainting started." "The first time..." "I thought I was going to die." "I lay on the floor, I managed to call him... it took him a long time to answer." "The second time, I knocked on a neighbor's door." "And she... called him, and he came quite fast." "The..." "I guess it was the..." "5th or 6th time, they called an ambulance that took me to the hospital." "And... after routine tests in the I.C.U.," "they took me to a private room." "I fell asleep." "When I woke up, there was a woman sitting on my bed and smiling." "Asked how I was feeling." "She told me: "I heard that you have fainting spells..."" "What happens right afterwards?" "I answered without thinking:" ""He comes."" "She said quietly:" ""Then that's your gain?"" "I cried a lot and I didn't understand how I reached that state." "I really wanted out." "The next day, when I went home," "I saw to it that the child wouldn't be home," "I stood in front of him," "I looked into his eyes, which were empty, there was nothing there..." "And I asked him... to leave." "He left." "Why does existence have to take place through a man's eyes?" "I don't understand." " Okay." "It takes two." "A woman without a man, that doesn't work..." " Why?" "No, that's impossible." "And a man without a woman, that doesn't work either." " Same thing!" "Yet they're not sitting here at this dinner..." " I don't agree!" "I really don't agree with that!" " Why?" " Just because." "But you can't live without a dick." " Right!" "But I don't have to keep this dick in my house." "I don't have to take care of it, and water and feed it..." " No, no way!" "But that's what usually happens." "You end up being this disk's nanny." "And I don't want to do that any more." "Because I have two boys, whom I really enjoy taking care of, because they're amazing and they're the fruit of my womb and there's no reason for me to take care of a third child!" "No." "No reason." " So I don't think that a woman without a man can work." "That's distorted." "Taking care of a man..." "Didn't you take care of a man?" "I don't know." "It's living together." "It's very romantic, and nice, but I'm not sure that it's possible." "And at least with a woman..." " History proves that it is possible." "The question is at what level and who suffered more..." "Who flourished and who sunk..." "But..." " I think that we're really seriously wronging men now." "I think that men suffer in relationships as much as we do and our demands of them, the ways we measure them are no less severe, it's just that they complain less about it, they're less verbal," "and it's very unmanly to complain about these things." "I think that in the past, a woman's role was very clear-cut." "And women really..." "you know," "I think that today we're so accomplished, that men really can't contain it." "I don't know." "There's something very strong about women, which men... don't know how to deal with." "No, you also have her..." " They can really answer one or two needs..." "She's coming from a very weak point..." " I don't know." "I'm sure that Noa will feel strong very fast, because I think that Noa on her own will feel less lonely than she felt in that relationship, where she wasn't alone, but was lonely." "I agree." "When the pills start working..." "I don't know." "At least now, it's my aloneness." "I concede." "You're feeling better on your own and you're not with him, that's a fact." "I see..." "Less lonely..." " Do you still faint?" "No, but it's there all the time, but I know that if I faint now no one will come." " So you don't faint." "So, I don't faint." " It comes from anxiety attacks." "That's what they said." "Yes..." "I really thought something was wrong with me." "Listen, something's wrong with you." " Physically." "I thought that something was physically wrong with me." " Oh." "Freud would call this female hysteria, you know." "But they used to wear corsets back then." "They really didn't have air." "We don't have it either..." " No, In Freud's day they..." "Just the illusion that you have air..." " They had opened the corsets" "You have an alternative." "You can choose." "It doesn't have to be this way." "I'd like to read something. "Of the Things of Which We May Doubt"" ""Several years have now elapsed since I first became aware" ""that I had accepted, even from my youth," ""several false opinions..." ""for true..." ""and that what I consequently based on such pure principles" ""was highly doubtful and from that time I was convinced" ""of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself" ""of all the opinions I had adopted" ""and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation," ""if I desired to establish a firm superstructure in the sciences." ""But as this enterprise appeared to me to be one of the great magnitude," ""I waited until I had attained an age so mature as to leave me no hope" ""that at any stage of life more advanced I should be better able" ""to execute my design." ""On this account, I have delayed so long" ""that I should henceforth consider I was doing wrong were I still" ""to consume in deliberation any of the time" ""that now remains for action."" "Part of my truth-seeking journey is exactly what Descartes says." "I decided that I didn't want to take false opinions for true." "I want to explore on my own whether love actually exists." "Whether it's something that is... that is actually real." "As a child, I grew up very much on my own." "My dad left home when I was about two." "My mother..." "Life had crushed her..." "Stepped all over her." "Trampled her." "She didn't have the energy..." "for anything." "She didn't have the energy... to believe that she deserves better." "And as a mother... that's what she conveyed." "After they broke up, she had a boyfriend... who was married... so he used to come..." "on the days he could come over." "And I only remember those moments when he'd come over..." "The light, the joy..." "He's coming over" "And when he wasn't there, she'd be reading a book, chain-smoking... and sad." "As if her happiness and joy... her existence!" "Depended only on another man." "And I wouldn't..." "I wouldn't have that." "I still won't have that." "I will never have that." "As a mother, she... she missed out on motherhood, to my mind." "I raised myself." "That is, I took care of myself," "I quickly learned to cook for myself, to make myself meals..." "She wasn't..." "She was no mother." "I don't remember warmth... or love... or touch." "I'm not the ultimate mother." "I really love my son." "He's... the most important thing to me." "But after I gave birth..." "I got depressed." "A... crazy, crazy depression." "I didn't..." "That responsibility..." "Looking at that little baby and understanding that I was responsible for his meals, for him burping, changing his diapers..." "This responsibility..." "devastated me." "But, society... tries to sell this lie, this dream, this fantasy." "Love is out there, and there's a prince out there, and when you get married and make a commitment... you're there!" "And I really, really wanted to believe in this." "When I met Ron I was at the club." "I was deejaying." "And he liked my freedom, my... wildness... the... whoever I am, normally." "And... we decided to get married." "And I said: "Okay, I'll try it."" "Maybe there's something to it..." "And we got married and our son was born..." "Noam... and... from the moment I gave birth, it was just... a nightmare!" "The..." "I remember the..." "There are these rules..." "You've got to take the child to the park." "Okay, you do that..." "And I just sat there, thinking:" ""Where's my life?" "Where's my music?" ""Where's my freedom?" "Where's my air?" "I'm suffocating!"" "And I remember this night where..." "I just couldn't take anymore of that shit." "Of all that "pretending"." "I went into my room," "I rolled myself this big ol' joint..." "I came back out and I told him:" ""That's it." "I can't take it anymore." ""I'm going out." "To have a good time."" "He tried to stop me:" ""Why?"" "I got dressed." "Put on my jeans." "Got in the car." "I remember that feeling of being in the car... cranking the volume up, way, way up!" "And not thinking... whether there is a child in the back or not, whether he's sleeping..." "Not to deal with all that..." "that freedom... rolling down the windows..." "Air!" "And I needed a lot of air..." "I went down to the club..." "which is my second home." "I just remember the bass drums..." "outside the door..." "I remember going in and feeling like..." "I'd returned to myself." "I'd returned to the place where I feel good." "I went straight to the bar, had a shot of frozen Stoli Crystal... and that was that." "I was back." "I remember that at 6 AM or something I suddenly realized I had to go home." "It was awful, that realization..." "I'd felt life again, and now I had to go back to that "Little house on the Prairie" and... be a mother." "And I gradually started working again, deejaying... and Ron tried to prevent me from doing that all the time..." ""Our family..."" "And..." "I now see my child twice a week." "And every other Saturday." "He comes to see me." "He gets an overjoyed me, a happy me." "He gets a loving me, very loving, and... it may sound a bit extreme, a mother who doesn't... a mother who gave up on her child." "But it's extreme only because it's... again, it's these norms of society we were all raised on, that we're the mothers, and the children have to be with us." " Why?" "Noam gets a complete me..." "when I'm with him, and I think that's more important." "I'm overjoyed, I'm happy." "He's overjoyed, he's happy." "Who said that they have to stay with us?" "I'm glad I tried this and had this experience of..." ""Okay." "People say it works." "I'll try it."" "I doesn't work." "Not for me at least." "I just don't get it." " What?" "I just don't get how you can give up on the most..." "She's not giving up!" " I haven't given up." "I see him twice a week." "She hasn't given up on anything!" "He spends every second weekend with me." "I haven't given up on anything!" "I really enjoy it!" "But at the same time, I can continue living my life." "My career is really important to me." "I love music..." "If I don't have it in my life, I'm not there." " Very brave girl." "Thank you." "I don't know if that's courage." "Maybe it's fear." "Maybe it's cowardice." "No, it's courage." "I don't think it's courage or cowardice." "I think that the parameters for measuring these things vary in different people." "It's not a matter of courage or cowardice." "Actually, it's a completely existential matter." "But it's not in these two days a week, you're all happy..." "You're like any other person." "You're also sad and angry..." " Of course..." "Because these two times..." " Who said?" "!" "Being a mother means seeing your child twice a week?" " Who said?" "!" "And who said that being a father means seeing your child twice a week?" "Not right..." " But fathers are much less significant in a child's life..." "Who said so?" " Right." " You're being schematic, comrades." "Suppose..." " So what?" "Alex, I don't understand what you're saying." "Really." "Like, the girl was feeling suffocated, she died." "You, of all people, who took this liberty and don't give a shit about all these laws of society, suddenly come out with this weird conservative outlook..." "What?" "I took this liberty?" " Yes." " How can you say that?" "I took this liberty?" "I had two children and I had to support them." "I took this liberty?" "!" "You took a liberty because you said:" ""I don't give a shit" ""about what the people say," ""and I'm doing the most lucrative thing and..."" "No, I said: "I have two babies that have to be brought up" ""in the best way possible." I gave up on my life," "I gave up on my ambitions, and I went to the place where I know I can support them and they can grow up properly." "You can support two kids on a nurse's salary as well." "No, that's impossible." "No..." " You decided you want a lot of money." "No, it's a lot of money." "It's giving your children what they need..." "Children need love mostly." " Love." " That's what they need." "Love." "Love." "Love." "Love." "I'll show you girls what love is." "This is love." "Nothing complicated." "Or abstruse." "I give them what they want, and they give me what I want." "Money." "You all want to be loved as you are." "With... like, you get up in the morning, no make-up... bad breath..." "You come home from work at night, all tense, smelling of omelet, with a screaming girl in your hands." "They don't want to see..." "They want a fantasy." "And I'm their fantasy." "I give them exactly what they want to see." "I'm the woman they dream of at night when they sleep in your beds." "It's me they want to fuck." "Sex!" "That's the one and only thing they're willing to do everything for." "Don't get me wrong." "I also had dreams once." "Until I stepped into the house once, 8 month's pregnant." "With a screaming baby in my arms, and he was there, in my bed, on my sheets, fucking my best friend... and you want to know what he said then?" "He said: "What do you want?" "It's only sex!"" "But that's the truth." "There's no love." "There's no such thing." "It just doesn't exist." "Love is a thing that just doesn't exist." "There's power." "And money is power." "Don't get me wrong." "You're ALL like me." "You're all whores." "Because it doesn't matter if he buys you dinner or buys you..." "You're selling yourself cheap." "And you stay there, to launder, clean up and cook..." "I don't clean up for anyone." "I get paid in cash, and no one tells me what to do with the money." "And don't think that it's "humiliating"." "Because this... is only a body..." "And they're only men." "I don't give my soul to anyone." "My heart... no one will take that." "I really felt that love died." "At a certain point." "When today you can ever hear romantic sounds on the Internet." "You don't have to go out to nature to hear birds singing, or rain." "Excitement is very available..." "I felt that... like, the more advanced we get," "we... become sadder and sadder... the more we want to reach the skies, we lose our truth as humans." "I met Ami when I was about 14." "Met..." "In retrospect I realized... he had marked me." "He wanted to raise me, and wanted me to be his wife." "Somehow he approached my family, my dad... and got their approval to court me." "I was a girl." "I was in the transition from elementary school to high-school." "Really, a girl." "And Ami charmed me." "Bought me stuff." "Pampered me..." "My family legitimized this," "they approved of it." "So..." "I got carried away." "Ami took me to his place." "Downtown, to Tel Aviv." "Nice apartment... and brought me up." "He brought me up to be a woman." "At a very, very early age." "I have to admit that I enjoyed it, and I found myself." "And with my very natural senses, with this natural instinct," "I understood what my role was." "I understood what I was supposed to do." "And I understood the power I had over him." "But only there, only in bed, did I have power over him." "A little power over him." "And the surprising thing was that my power was in weakness." "My power was in: "It hurts!"" "My power was in my... naivete." "Which I tried to preserve, so..." "he'd be attracted to me." "He taught me, gradually..." "I became a woman very quickly." "I looked like a woman very quickly." "I dressed like a woman, and I was only interested in" "cleaning up, cooking, and... tidying up our little nest that I would rarely leave." "I stayed there all the time." "With our friends, in discotheques... and this was the 70's, early 80's... he liked it when I sat on his lap." "So I'd sit on his lap everywhere." "Like his daughter." "And I felt belonged." "I felt that someone was taking care of me." "That somebody cared." "The plan..." "the master plan was that we were to get married when I turned 16." "But when I was 15, I got pregnant." "And Ami was furious." "That didn't fit in with his plans." "It really didn't fit in with his plans." "And no... nothing I said helped." "I cried and cried, but to no avail." "I begged and begged, and..." "I really wanted that child so much." "I wanted it so much." "But nothing helped." "And on the way to the hospital, on the way to the operation itself, to the abortion, I screamed..." "I called him a murderer." "But that didn't help me, and I aborted, and after that I wasn't the same Racheli again." "But Ami married me in his good time." "And we had children." "Two." "In his good time." "And... he sent me to school..." "cosmetics." "That's what I do." "And gradually, I grew up." "And I became a woman, and Ami... started staying away more and more." "And I started looking for him," "and one day I saw him at one of our friends' places" "with a girl, sitting on his lap." "And then I realized I had grown old." "Shall we have something to eat?" "There's something very clean about a meeting of women who are strangers, who don't know each other." "And, suddenly there's something very intimate, where they're all talking about the same thing, the same pain, and then, this strangeness becomes something, where they really warm up to each other." "The loneliness and alienation of each one of them, coming from her own place, or sitting down next to someone she doesn't know, and suddenly, in our essence..." "we're all alike." "We all need the same thing." "We may all hunger from the same place." "I think that men and women... don't go together." "It's yin and yang." " Oh, come on!" "What do you mean, oh, come on!" " Fairytale!" "Who's raising your child?" "!" "Why is that a fairytale?" "But he's not..." " It's perfect!" "You've switched roles, but you're complementing each other." " Exactly." " No, we're not." "But, you did everything to be loved... everything... to be loved..." "And I got a lot of love." " What do you mean, a lot of love?" "When you were traded in for someone else?" " It's not..." "Again, this wound..." "is only a scar now." "But I had experiences that are..." "That man has very serious problems." "Like, that man..." "Those are serious, sexual organ problems... mental problems..." "How can they be good?" "How can they be good?" "If you cooked for him?" "That made me happy in many ways!" " What's happiness?" "Feeling joy at heart, a sense of belonging..." "Feeling that you want to do something for someone..." "A home." "Joy, when someone accepts you." " Exactly." " Receives from you." "Gives you..." "Okay, so I know how to live without this today." "Because he doesn't want me anymore." "I grew older." "But... and this wounded me or..." "I had to cope with something, but I appreciate what he did for me when I was young, you know." "You can't expect men..." "I think this is a terrible weakness..." "To expect men to fill us." "We have to be full, and they have to be full people, and the interchange must be fertilizing." "Come on..." "cut the bullshit!" "You're expected to be... to cook, to do the laundry, and be a wonderful mother, and be a babe in bed after you got up and breastfed every 2 hours at night, and then when you're pregnant, they cheat on you!" "Don't you expect that from yourself as well?" "I really don't expect this from myself..." "I expect them to understand where I'm at, and to breathe in, and wait until the mess is over." "I don't expect them not to understand that, to leave in the midst of the storm." "Or to cheat, or fuck, or beat or whatever..." "What is this crap?" ""He didn't come to see me, so he beat me..."" "He's not this, so he's that..." "Come on!" "We live in a male society." "This society is run by men, we're expected to be so-and-so..." "and that's it." "We play the game." "So occasionally, we sit at this dinner party, which, by the way," "I've never sat at... and we try to understand..." "What is love?" " She's back in her element..." "She really woke up..." "She had this moment of..." " Stop it, come on!" "Love, love, love..." "They marry you." "You have this show, with this nice white wedding dress, and from that moment onwards, you become a spineless person." "A spineless person." "I thought about this in the beginning, but when we talked about... how my parents really loved each other" "I suddenly remembered that I went out..." "I didn't marry very young, so I used to bring guys to dinner at my mom's and my parents would both have something to say about him, this one was so-and-so, and the other one was so-and-so... no one was the perfect one for me," "because I was the perfect one at home, and no one was good enough for me." "And one time, I brought him, and..." "Iovable." "Everyone fell in love with him and said: "He's the one."" "And I said: "He's the one!" "Finally!" "I'm going to live out this fantasy, 'if he's the one." So I was really all right, and I did what's right, and, like, if I think... a lot of loneliness came up here, and I think about" "a picture of loneliness in my case, that would be walking with the carriage..." "I don't know..." "that's as lonely as can be." "It's leaving home with the carriage in the morning, coming back in the afternoon, seeing the carriage's father sleeping waking up, seeing us..." "we're really not interesting... and just going." "And..." "I'm trying to remember what I fell in love with." "And I say: "Bingo!" "I deserve it."" "I had fallen in love with this charming person, who wore socks that didn't match and with a holey, un-ironed shirt, because he didn't have anyone to iron for him... and who thinks that the plate gets to the sink in this magical way... by sleight of hand..." "So I say: "Shall I swap him?"" "I'm sure I'll get a different variation of the same man and at the end of the day I'll find myself taking care of another creature." "An infantile, childlike, needy, demanding creature, much less graceful than the fruit of my womb, because my children are... they deserve it... and if I don't adore him for his very existence... he'll also feel very much hurt." "And justly so, because I chose him, so it's my fault." "And to tell you the truth..." "I think I would have stayed there..." "I was in that relationship for 10 years." "I would have stayed there to this very day, unless I would have..." "I fell in love, for the first time in my life, and I know that was love." "I really fell in love." "Like all the stories, which I never knew how they happened..." "I mean, feeling weak in the knees, and sex... and not seeing anything, and only thinking about when I would get to see him... and... he was charming, and he was married." "And it was a lot of fun, and he told me I was the love of his life, and that I'm amazing, and... that we had to live together, because he can't live without me," "and I surely couldn't live without him." "So I sat my charming husband down and I told him I was in love," "and to make a long story short, we got divorced, and he fell to pieces in such a way that..." "I don't know what visiting arrangements are, and alimony is also this vague thing, which I've heard of, and I don't know of." "But the most important thing is that I'm living with my lover... he left a second after I got divorced." "I mean, he didn't leave." "He just didn't leave his wife..." "And, like, I tried to think, like:" ""Why had I believed this thing?" I mean," "You can actually... say anything about me, save that I don't lie... except to myself." "And you can lie to me so easily..." "If there are any liars here, come to me..." "Because, it's..." "my girlfriends lied to me" "They're not my friends anymore..." "men... people have always lied to me." "And I always... tried to understand why I swallowed that lie, and I realized that I needed something to leave that... stupid fantasy, and get out of this house." "And..." "I don't know." "I think that if your fantasy is a man and two kids and a dog... you'll take care of the dog, even if he came with the man, and you will restrain yourself, and internalize things" "and..."Suck my dick, even though you're tired"" "And good luck, and you're to look like you did when you got married, because, how come you're changing, like... go on, it's the end of the day..." "Go for it." "And I was completely broken, and I sat at home, and read all the books about... relationships and spiritualism, and I just realized there was another option and it's called: "Get out"." "And I realized that if one man is good at one thing, and I don't know any men who can do two things well... so, take one man for one thing." "That is, if you want sex, take the one who's the best at sex." "Need someone to take care of your kids?" "Take someone who's best at taking care of your kids." "Need someone to go out with?" "Take someone to go out with." "And..." "I don't see myself living otherwise." "I mean, I'd really be glad to, but..." "I don't want to take any more shit." "And I don't want to take care of anyone anymore, except my kids, my wonderful kids, and a bit of myself, when I have time left." ""Not mine, not mine..." "Serenity is not my destiny" ""From your world, my fantasy, I take my leave." ""I'm sorry!" "I'm taking my leave and going." ""No, I do not belong." ""You shall not see my face twisting again..."" "That's it." "And whoever wants to is invited to the workshop, and I'II..." "Is that what you do?" "You take care of women?" " Yes, I give workshops." "You don't want to take care of anyone..." " I'm not taking care of anyone, I'm giving women tools, so they can realize themselves and get out of their relationships and realize that it's not the end if they go out and they won't fall apart, no harm done," "and they can get on just fine, even if they get out of a bad relationship..." "But there is some harm." "What do you mean?" "You get ripped apart!" "Of course some harm gets done!" "How can you say "No harm done"?" " I'm not saying: "No harm done" ""in the break-up"." " A calamity..." " The break-up is very, very hard and very, very painful." "But you can also do it on your own if you're happy there, and if you realize yourself there." "If you don't feel used there, for things that you're not interested in." "Because I'm not interested in taking care of anyone anymore!" "Hold on, but are you happy?" "I'm happier than I used to be." "Much happier than I used to be." "Do you feel lonely?" " I fell less lonely than I used to." "Much less." "It sounds very lonely..." "Maybe." " Loneliness is the existential condition." "Like, what does that..." "We're not living in a community, we're not living in..." "I mean..." "In your case, it actually really sounds like a community..." " Yes." "You have a regular commune there..." "This one and that one..." " Do all those guys know each other?" "No one knows the others, and that's not the point, either." "Didn't any of them want more?" "I don't think I'm conveying that I want more right now." "I didn't like any of them beyond this." "I don't think any of them can do 2 or 3 things." "What are the 3 things?" " The 3 things?" "It's much more than those 3 things!" "I want a partner, I want a friend," "I want sex, I want someone who will be my partner in raising the kids, who will be as interested in it as I am..." "I don't believe there's such a man." "And such a woman?" " I'm such a woman!" "Exactly..." "I wanted to ask..." "so why not live with a woman?" "Because I'm not attracted to women." "I want sex as well." "Right..." " Fair enough." "But why does the relationship always go wrong when the children come along?" "First of all... that's wrong." "It becomes... more complex." "It becomes more complex." "So complex that you have to break up?" "It's no longer a relationship." " What is it then?" " It's a family." "But that's what you got married for!" "To raise a family!" "Yes, but you give up on being a couple, and you become parents, and you can't always combine these two things." "Why do men always shirk this responsibility?" " They don't!" "My man doesn't shirk this responsibility." "It's wrong to say that men "always" do something." "Men are not this homogenous entity." "Just like we're different from each other, our men, and men all around the world, are!" "Maybe we should all take a pee break?" "Are you afraid of being alone?" "Being alone, not finding a man?" "I am afraid." "I don't know if "afraid" is the right word, but I'm not..." "You want to grow old together." "Still, the picture of this old couple we see once in... two years..." "This old couple, even if we think that they've met yesterday, at the old folks home, and therefore... still, the picture of this old couple sitting on the bench or... is a picture I want, I really want." "Really, really." "I also think that this fantasy didn't come from nowhere." "There must have been such cases, and we built the fantasy from them!" "Where does the fantasy come from?" "It means it must have existed!" "In mythology..." " There was something there." "Therefore, why do we?" "I don't want to stay on my own." "I want to grow old together, like" "I want..." " I think that one of the problems is always looking at life as a series of long-term tasks." "Look, life is something that happens from moment to moment... as John Lennon said:" ""Life it's what's happening to you when you're making plans..."" "Totally." " I don't know." "I can't deal with what will happen in another 20 or 30 years..." "Maybe there won't be anything." "But what about this thing about falling in love and needing to say:" ""Forever and ever"?" "It's this childish thing, it's like this need..." ""Let's get married!" "Let's love each other forever and ever!"" "Like, it's not..." "everyone knows it's a sort of lie..." "But why do we have this need..." "Love me more, more, more than anyone!" "It's only me, me, me!" "And only me!" " Right." "Damn!" "Why are we better off in a relationship?" "I'm much better when I'm with someone." "I also have this serenity, you know?" "When it's good..." "I also have this serenity." "I can work serenely." "My mind's not troubled." "I can be really available for other things." "Really available." "You share things with someone." "Sharing..." "There's someone else there." "Damn, there's fucking..." "there's somebody else there!" "The amazing thing is..." "I called him Zorro." "And, why..." "He would storm into every place." "A sort of: "Tada..." He'd go in!" "And..." "I'll tell you how I met him." "I was on a break..." "I work in a healthcare clinic, and I was on break, and..." "I went to see an exhibition in a gallery." "And I stood there, looking at a picture." "And I feel something behind me, and I didn't pay attention to it, but that thing went on there, this weird energy... and I turned around and I saw... a man who was just standing there with his head askance," "and I asked him: "Excuse me, do you need medical help?"" "It looked as if he had sprained his back..." "So he said: "No." "I'm looking for meaning in the painting."" "So we stood there for an hour or so, looking for meaning in the painting." "We didn't find it there, but in his studio..." "Studio." "My mom used to call it "A pigsty from the last century..."" "There, in bed, we found great meaning, and... you know this feeling when you meet someone, and you don't want it to end, ever?" "When you want to be with him all the time, where you want to grab this feeling and grasp it with your hands?" "That's how I felt with him." "But I don't know." "The..." "He started feeling bad very quickly." "Everything bothered him." "The kids bothered him." "People on the street bothered him." "The fact that he wasn't able to sell paintings, the fact that he didn't..." "It was all this frustration..." "something so bad..." "And then the first time came around..." "What do you do?" "I really wanted to hide, so people wouldn't see me." "If I was walking down the street, and I'd see friends or acquaintances," "I'd cross the street." "So no one would see me." "So they wouldn't know." "And anyway, when does that moment arrive, when you say," "What?" ""Naw, I can't be a battered woman."" "I see people all day long, take care of people, and examine them." "Examine their hearts, I'm the one who listens all the time, when people talk to me, and..." "And then I realized that I was a battered woman, but that I couldn't break up, because if I were to break up, everything would break up." "So, what did I do?" "I went to this place I always had a hard time with..." "I always had an issue with." "And that would be my hair." "And then I decided I wanted to be naked." "I wanted to be exposed." "I didn't want to hide anything anymore." "So I cut my hair short." "I didn't like my hair anyway." "I thought that I could confront him, exposed, with short hair." "And the next time, when he slapped me, you could see it." "When I went to work, everyone asked me: "What happened?"" "Because it was there already." "It was very obvious." "And then I walked out." "I left the house, with the children." "Without anything." "But damn, where's our love?" "We were really, really..." "I..." "we really loved each other." "I don't know if it was that combination of the doctor and the artist..." "or this or that... we really loved each other." "Really." "I even want to say that I..." "I still love him." "I love him!" "Where is he?" "Sorry, I'm..." "Why isn't he here anymore?" "Why am I not here anymore?" "Why don't I want to love him anymore?" "I don't want to love him." "And then I..." "just want to choke this love." "I think that that's the point." "Love doesn't die." "But..." "I have the..." "I guess, to survive better... so I... take my love and I just choke it." "I haven't gotten rid of the fantasy." "I miss him." "I miss home." "I miss our family, which we had." "Even if it's no longer good." "I don't want it, but I miss it!" "It doesn't matter..." "When I'm driving and I see cars, and I see all those families, on Saturdays, with the little girls in ponytails..." "I want that too!" "I want a home!" "I want a..." "I want a family." "Because any other family I'll have... will be... more complex." "What do you want?" "What do you really want to understand here?" "When I was 7, my mother had a boyfriend, and every time they'd break up..." "I'd go with her..." "we'd drive and see if he was there." "If his car was there, if the light was on in his window..." "I would get out of the car, of course, and go see if there were signs of life in his place..." "After we found out whether he was there and was still living there, or wasn't cheating on her with someone else, or had another woman in the house..." "I would go with my mother to upscale suburbs, to look at other people's houses." "Until this very day..." "I look at other people's houses when I walk down the street," "I try to see what kind of houses they are and what kind of people live there what kind of smells there are there," "I grew up into this notion that love is nonexistent." "So I never know if love, or the house I see from the outside... fit in with what you see from inside." "Why am I doing this project, Alex?" "I feel I'm not doing it only for myself..." "As an artist, of course, I want to convey the meanings of things, meanings in society, and..." "art is a reflection of what we are." "But I feel that somehow, I'm dedicating this project to my mother." "With all the suffering she went through, with all the pills she took, and with all the betrayals and pain she went through, she still... she was a mother." "I think I have an answer for you, you know." "What kills love, I think... is our expectation of what love is supposed to be." "A fantasy." " No." "Yes." "What's an expectation?" "It's some fantasy we were raised on, or we think that that's how things are supposed to be." "I'd always look at all the other couples at the beach with their kids, and it always seemed as if..."Wow!" ""It's there!" "It's there!"" "The fantasy's there." "It's... a family and a home, and..." "a partner and a friend, and... supporting each other and advancing each other and... but I'm not willing to pay any price of... having my blood sucked again, and that I won't have time to do the things... other things," "where it won't make me soar, but just... help others," "and..." "I'll be glad to be surprised... and I'll be glad to chance upon something else," "but not at any price." "There's this kitschy song I heard on the radio a few days ago, a Bon Jovi song..." "It goes like this:" ""It's my life." "It's now or never..." ""I ain't gonna live forever." "I just want to live while I'm alive."" "I think this is why I walked out... to live, not to die!" "Not because of Bon Jovi, but..." "Of course." " The song I really remember from the break-up period is..." ""'Cause I'm free to do what I want," ""Any old time..." That was..." "That was... the song." "Mine was "I will survive"." "Mine was..." ""Little lies, beautiful lies, sleep in our heart..."" "Alex, what's your song?" "Mine?" " Yes?" ""Come on, baby..." -"Light my fire..." -"Light my fire..."" "No..." " I want to hear Alex's song." "Does Alex have a song?" "I didn't have a song." "Look, I think that..." "That's why I asked why you had invited US, because... after all, I think that we all want love." "And..." "Me too..." "She came out of the closet!" "Hey!" " Belonging..." " What?" "You've just stripped!" "I didn't strip..." "To strip is to take your clothes off." " No, it's not." "It's saying the truth." "I think that we all want love." "I think that... any attempt to crack this thing called love, between men and women... you have to remember one element, which is the magic." "Love is magic." "It's scary, it's painful, it's fun..." "We've sat here an entire night and we haven't talked about a single amazing moment that we've had, and we've had those." "Many of them." "And we have them now, and we'll have them with the next man we meet, and we'll have alone-time," "and, like, life..." "Let's enjoy the wine, for starters..." "What's beautiful to see is that with all the pain and our feeling of failure, of the girls, and their terrible loneliness and the Sisyphean coping that they live with, a bundle on their backs, the evident residues," "they're going to climb the mountain, and fall, climb the mountain and fall." "But in the end, we all want to climb to the top, and not to fall." "They all still want to find love." "And even though they all failed, and they're all hurt, it's hard for all of them, the fact that they haven't lost hope" "I think that's the most beautiful thing to see."