Ha-Gan (1977) User Reviews

Early obscure Israeli film with a very naked Melanie Griffith

[jbernhard · 5/10 · 31 May 2006]

This is a very hard film to find, but having seen it, I can understand why. It is rather difficult to say if it's any good or not. Melanie Griffith plays a mute character, who may or may not be an angel. The film does not make this point clear. The music is wildly off base most of the time, completely inappropriate to the on screen action. The acting seems decent, although the language is Hebrew and I was reading English subtitles, so that may have obscured the performances a bit. Also I am not Jewish, so it may be I missed some small meaning here and there as the story does deal with issues of faith. The plot concerns Abraham, who works a garden with his wife in the heart of Jerusalem. He uses sewer water to irrigate and the smell bothers people, and the land is so valuable, local builders want him to sell for a million and a half lira and move out. Abraham's son Issac want's his dad to sell too, as he will participate in the profits. This material is inter cut with Melanie Griffith wandering around the city, seemingly lost and speechless. She runs into 3 guys who follow her as they think they'll get sex from her, mostly because she won't say anything. She has a few run in's with them until they catch her in Abrahm's garden, where one of the males strips her naked. Abraham arrives and the boys flee, and the old man sees Melanie and believes her to be an angel. From this point on Mel romps around in the buff, which is certainly easy on the eyes, but the story kind of fizzles out and the wrap up had me scratching my head. Was Melanie's character real, imagined, an angel or a tourist with a mental disorder? I notice on her website, Melanie does not list this film. After spending 90 minutes in the garden, I think I may have an idea as to why she omits this one.

Melanie Griffith's best movie?

[lazarillo · 14 September 2009]

I'm not the best guy to review this perhaps because it was originally in Yiddish and the version I saw was dubbed into German with no English subtitles, so needless to say a lot of it was lost on me. It does hold your interest somewhat, but perhaps mostly because a nineteen-year-old Melanie Griffith is running around butt-naked through about half of it. I have no idea why Griffith's character is hanging around Israel nor why the young actress herself was there (Is she Jewish perhaps?). At the beginning of the movie, she's kind of a mute, errant schoolgirl. She nearly gets hit by a bus and gets chased into the countryside by a trio of sex-minded males. After wandering around the wilderness and nearly getting raped twice, she manages to lose all her clothes. And between that and her penchant for eating apples, she's obviously supposed to represent Eve in the Garden. Perhaps this is a metaphorical commentary on the other story which involves a son trying to get his father to sell his land to some shady developers. Perhaps the whole thing is about a kind of fall from paradise.

The natural scenery here is very impressive. It's easy to see why people have spent thousands of years fighting over this land. Melanie's natural scenery is also very impressive. This might actually be her best film, not so much because of the nudity (which is pretty typical of her 70's and early 80's work before she became a STAR), but because she doesn't talk. Like her mother (Tippi Hedren), Griffith was very easy on the eyes and very hard on the ears with her shrill little-girl voice. It's not that she's a bad actress really, but the less dialogue she delivers the better (too bad they didn't think having her character in "Working Girl" be mute).

I didn't really understand this movie enough to either recommend it or pan it, but it would be interesting to see it again with some subtitles.

Ha-Gan-- הגן--The Garden

[steven_torrey · 10/10 · 28 January 2014]

The owner of the Garden is a fellow named Abraham. His wife is named Sarah. His only son is named Isaac. The Garden is somewhere in Jerusalem, about 1977--when the film was made. Someone--named Mr. Moshe--wants to buy the garden for 1.6 million lira. Abraham refuses to sell. (The Biblical allusions would be clear to anyone who was Jewish; but like all parables, the message--if there is one--could be lost in the telling.) The other story is about a mute girl who is being chased by 3 moped riding young thugs... One of them attempts to rape her--without success... She finds her way to the garden and eventually, the fat thug does manage to do violate her in the garden , and she ends up naked and in the garden...

Abraham sees her and thinks she is an Angel sent by God, and gives food offerings for her--but no clothing... (After all, he sincerely thinks she is an Angel of the Lord.) He does not tell Sarah, his wife, but he does tell one of his friends that he has an Angel in his garden--and the viewer is left to question how much detail he revealed to his friends...

Towards the end of the film, the thugs show up again to try and rape the mute girl--still naked--only to be interrupted by Isaac. One of the thugs--the rapist--throws a stone at Isaac wounding him and making him unconscious. The Angel comes to his assistance, revives him, and Isaac now is wondering what she really is. Isaac seems to think she is indeed an Angel...

By the end of the movie, the Angel has disappeared, and Abraham decides to sell his garden so at least and at last Isaac can be rich.

And yes Melanie Griffith--at about aged 20--is a winsome naked Angel--for the last half of the film. Perhaps the 'message' is that women are indeed Angels, especially when they are naked and silent and young and winsome...

I'm told she does not list this film as part of her oeuvre, but she really has nothing to be ashamed of; she followed the director's instructions and gives a more than acceptable interpretation as a female deaf mute to be interpreted by Abrahm as an Angel.

Half-baked

[Nozz · 6 March 2002]

Hard to tell whether somebody wanted to make a pretentious allegory and threw in a naked Melanie Griffith to help market it, or just wanted to market a naked Melanie Griffith and threw in a pretentious allegory as justification. In any case, my guess is there wasn't enough budget for more than a half-baked job; the movie doesn't seem to know where it's going or why.

"Lost in the Garden of Eden, Said, we're lost in the Garden of Eden, And there's no one who's gonna believe this, But we're lost in the Garden of Eden, come on."

[DoorsofDylan · 8/10 · 12 July 2023]

Getting home, I decided to end a really good night,by attempting to find an obscure/overlooked film I could watch before bed.

Going through fellow IMDber lazarillo's reviews,I was pleased to find that a film which they had watched without subtitles, had now appeared online with English Subtitles, which led to me investigating what is at the bottom of the garden.

View on the film:

Walking round saying just a handful of lines, and completely naked for the majority of the film, Melanie Griffith gives a hypnotic performance as the unnamed girl, thanks to Griffith staying on the line of ambiguity, via angelic facial expressions, and a walking style that captures the girl being completely at peace in the garden, whilst at the same time, Griffith has the girl firmly kick back, against those who want to rape her and destroy the garden.

Refusing to remove his roots from the location, Shaike Ophir gives a great, crusty turn as Avram, with Ophir bringing out a comedic charm in Avram's stubborn refusal to not sell the garden, which grows to Ophir displaying in an abrasive fashion Avram's passion for keeping the garden, to be an area as innocent as Eden.

Exploring every corner of this secret garden for his lone directing credit, Victor Nord & cinematographer Valery Galprin play a Prog Rock atmosphere of hazy lens flare over extended fluid hand-held camera moves washed in a kaleidoscope of colours, which melt into lush green soft-focus wide-shots on the mysterious girl casting a heavenly light on the garden.

Joining Nord in this being his lone writing credit, the screenplay by Yosef Avisar lays on rather thickly that this location is the garden of Eden, where the purity of the area wipes away anyone who attempts to bring sin in, with Avram the lone figure to hold faith in fighting to keep the sanctity of the place.

Going on walkabout with the girl, Avisar strings tasty psychedelic riffs on the angelic figure, whose biting of Adam's apple conjures the girl as a mirage who vanishes/ re-appears each time Avram stares into the area, which wonderfully comes into focus, when the un-named girl resurrects, and sleeps with a skeptical member of Avram's family, who discovers the mythical power of the garden.