By Sheldon Teitelbaum

Avi Nesher was a young soldier in an Israeli special forces unit operating in Gaza during the early 70s when he first encountered the “Beast.” Though highly trained and superbly motivated, his fellow commandos were too slow on the trigger. They lost men asa result. And this worried their superiors, who assigned them a psychiatrist.

“We were well-educated lads from moral homes,” explained Nesher, nowa youthful 37. “If we saw a woman bearing down on us with a weapon, or perhaps a young teenager,” he recalled, “we would hesitate.”

The shrink’s job, recalled Nesher, was to help them overcome their reticence to shoot first, to unlock their baser instincts and unleash the“Beast” inside each. It was a task Nesher said he was able to accomplish too easily. “I saw some amazing Beasts in those days,” said Nesher. “And I

Michael Biehn as the mild-mannered watchmaker who discovers he is really a nameiess killer bred by the C.I.A.

INU 2 IML LE

Michael Biehn stars as a CIA-bred killing

heard some horrendous stories from the psychologist, a Princeton graduate, about similar efforts undertaken by the CIA. Those stories have stayed with me for a long time.”

In February, they will find expression in Nesher’s first Hollywood feature, NAME- LESS, a $7 million science fiction thriller produced by Rafaella DeLaurentiis for MGM/ UA. The film, which was written by Nesher, wasshotinandaround Los Angeles, and wrapped in mid-June after two months of principal photography. It stars Michael Biehn (THE TERMI- NATOR), Richard Jordan (LOGAN'S RUN), and Patsy Kensit (LETHAL WEAPON).

Nesher’s cinematic nightmare revolves around a mildmannered watchmaker who slowly discovers that he is, in fact, a CIA bred-and-trained killing machine. Rather like Arnold Schwarzenegger in TOTAL RECALL, the Bichn character learns that his real memories have been replaced by those of an ersatz persona. And as in TOTAL RECALL, he strives to regain his identity while a team of operatives tries to snuff him.

NAMELESS is not the film Nesher’s fans in Israel would have anticipated. His first short THE DEAD UPON THE LIVING, was remarkably similar to last year’s poorlyreceived comedy, A WEEK- END AT BERNIE’S, in which a pair of young men on the make shlepp their dead boss about, trying to pass him offas alive. Nesher shot the film in 1973, while on leave from the army. HA’LAHAKA (THE TROUPE), Nesher’s first fulllength feature, released in Israel in 1978, wasa whimsical look at an army entertainment troup during the War of Attri-

Biehn inside the H.R. Giger-inspired machine— an artificial womb—used by the C.1.A. to regress him to a fetal state.

LESS

tion (1967-1973) with Egypt. Israel's answer to THESOUND OF MUSIC, it was produced for $200,000 and became one of the highest-grossing film in the country’s history.

In 1985, Nesher directed RAGE AND GLORY, a film about the pre-state Irgun underground defense organization, acclaimed at film festivals in Chicago and Montreal. The film brought Nesher to the attention of Hollywood, where hitherto hermetically-sealed doors miraculously opened to him.

Nesher said he came to Hollywood to make science fiction movies. This was not something he could have done, he believes, had he remained in Israel, and not merely because the country's filmmakers lack the expertise—and the funds required to make such movies. Rather, Israelis do not like fantasy, “In Israel,” said Nesher, “reality is almost so grim it borders on the dystopian. The country, because of its circumstance, leads such a weird and violent existence, it’s almost surrealistic. You don't see in Isracli literature the playfulness of THE LITTLE PRINCE. In cinema, you will never have an Israeli E.T. Instead, you get this great obsession with the misery of everyday life—with the pain and hardship and struggle of making it through another day.

“In Cincinnati, however, maybe you need a sense of the strange and bizarre. Itactsasa stimulus, jolts you out of a mundane existence.

“I suppose | am fortunate in that I feel equally at home in both cultures. And I can see how both can get themselves in trouble really easily. In America, violence is perceived as a fantasy, and so it becomes a reality in two seconds. In Israel, joy is feared because it would lead to levity, If we are all too happy, who will guard

é6In America violence is perceived |

as a fantasy, and so it becomes a reality in two seconds. In Israel

| joy is feared. If we are too happy _ who will guard the borders? 39

Nesher directs Patsy Kensit as the doctor who uncovers the secret of Biehn’s past.

the borders? A sense of wonder becomes a very dangerous thing.”

Forhis roleas Nesher’s CIAtrained killing machine, Biehn, fresh from the allegedly horrendous rigors of THE ABYSS, where director James Cameron reportedly ran his actors through endless underwater hoops, was put through a somewhat scaled-down Israeli Defense Forces version of the U.S. Army SEALS’ dreaded “Hell Week.”

“Every day, "recalled Nesher, “five o'clock inthe morning, on the beach, forten hours, Michael was put through sheer pain. But it made a tremendous difference to the movie. Michael didn't learna series of techniques—he learned an attitude. And you can't fake it.” An Israeli psychiatrist also trained Biehn to express different kinds of anxiety, from mild discomfort to full-fledged attack. Biehn had overdone his portrayal of a vein-bulging. eye-popping psychopath in THE ABYSS, and needed to be reined in somewhat. Though Ho!lywood offered Nesher greater expertise and significantly greater budgets than he had worked with before, the best metaphor for making films in this town remains, as far as he is concerned, the waging of war. “The filmmaking adventure— the glamour people talk about —becomes minimal,” he said. “We worked for cighteen hours a day for eight months, weekends included. It's amazingly difficult. Few experiences in my life have been as difficult as this. Youare trying to build huge sets, elaborate action scenes, trying to make

machine for Israeli director Avi Nesher.

something look realistic despite its fantastic elements, all for $7 million, which today is nota lot of money.”

Oddly, optical-laden special effects shots and set-designing feats that might have seemed outlandish to the young Israeli filmmaker working ona shoestring budget more than a decade ago came off with nary a hitch, In NAMELESS, Biehn eventually encounters that which transforms him into a killing machine. It is an artificial womb—a machine which takes over every bodily function, forcing its occupant to undergo a mental, and to a degree, physical regression to the fetal state. The machine has a Gigeresque quality to it. Bichn’s body is hooked to dozens of tubes, catheters and electrodes, making it difficult to ascertain where the organic ends and the inorganic begins.

The machine ought to have been no easier to design than it was foractor Biehnto occupy it for days at a time during the shoot. Yet, according to Nesher, building it was easier than erecting the Suez Canal bunker for his first feature, HA'LA- HAKA. “Ispenttheentire War of Attrition in a bunker,” said Nesher, “During the fiming of NAMELESS, | often thought about that stupid little bunker. This machine, which was five hundred times biggerand more elaborate, was easier to assem~- ble. | knew that bunker by heart, so I drew it. Getting other people to build it the way l envisioned it, however, wasn't always easy. In Israel, weareall great improvisors. But inscience fiction you can't wing it. You have to be extremely precise, because you want people to suspend their disbelief.

“1 was able to be that precise about my machine. I had lived with it in my mind for fifteen years. I drew it, and got it made. That's the wonder of Hollywood.” Oo