On a Narrow Bridge

The End of Milton Levy is a 1981 Israeli crime film, written and directed by Nissim Dayan, with Oshik Levy and Dov Glickman in the lead roles.

The story of a woman trying to free her husband from a Russian prison camp. She lives in Israel, organizes strikes, and gains public and press support. But her public life begins to clash with her private life as she falls in love with a Hebrew teacher. This causes tensions in her family and the Israeli Russian community. Her love for the teacher, desire to end her heroic public obligations, and live her own life compose her tragedy.

Between the years 1950-51 close to 130 thousand Jews left Iraq. The most ancient community in the world ceased to exist.

A sensitive teenager living in a poor Tel Aviv suburb grapples with a range of pressures in his neighborhood—both personal and social. Nissim Dayan on his film: “First and foremost, it’s important for me to emphasize that I’m a local patriot; I have no mixed feelings about Tel Aviv. I made this film in the neighborhood out of genuine love for it, for its people, and for what it symbolizes to me…” The film, considered a pioneer of Israeli political cinema, draws heavily on 1960s Italian cinema (Pazolini’s *Accattone*, for example), known as the second generation of Italian neorealism.