CS Weekly Archive > From the Trenches > 6/19/09

For a Few Dollars More:
$9.99 's Etgar Keret and Tatia Rosenthal

BY ADAM STOVALL

Etgar Keret and Tatia Rosenthal show us the fantastical side of everyday events, in $9.99.

For as long as he can remember, Etgar Keret has written short stories. He was first published in 1992, and six years later published the short story that would begin his adventure through Hollywood. His short story, "Ha'Keytana Shel Kneller" ("Kneller's Happy Campers"), was adapted by writer-director Goran Dukic into the feature film Wristcutters: A Love Story. Watching others adapt his work, Etgar decided he wanted to try his hand at that as well.

Enter Tatia Rosenthal. Growing up, Tatia was first interested in painting, then acting and photography, and eventually realized that filmmaking would provide a path for her to embrace all of her passions. She went to NYU and set about making her first short, Crazy Glue. It was an adaptation of one of Keret's short stories, as well as an experiment with various kinds of animation. It was while working on Crazy Glue that she realized how well stop-motion animation complemented Keret's subject matter and style of storytelling. Pleased with the process of collaboration as well as the finished film, Keret and Rosenthal started work on their next project, a feature-length adaptation of several of Keret's short stories.

"I think my entire film school experience was based on my desire to work with Etgar," says Rosenthal, "And sitting down to choose my favorite stories for us to adapt, I felt like a kid in a candy store."

$9.99 is a mosaic of fantastical tales about the everyday dramas faced by the tenants of an apartment building in Australia. There's an angel who might not be all that he says he is; a young boy who finds love in the unlikeliest of places; as well as people learning exactly what they will or will not do for love. And in the midst of all this, there is a book that offers the answer to everything for just $9.99.

The history of cinema is filled with filmmakers and authors who found in each other a brother (or sister) in arms—someone with similar sensibilities who would push them to artistic peaks. Altman and Carver. Darabont and King. Coppola and Puzo. As varied as the films are, so are the processes by which they evolved.

For Keret and Rosenthal, the process is completely conversational. Since Rosenthal is already familiar with Keret's work, there's a shorthand when deciding what stories to use, and what changes need to be made. "We would just talk and say 'I don't like this', 'I don't like that', 'I'm not sure this works at all', and through this process of elimination, we ensure that nothing goes into the script that we both don't love," recalls Keret.

Of course, for Keret the process starts long before that. "I write as a reader. When I'm writing, I just want to see what comes next—the writing itself is something comes very naturally. I usually write about life the way I've experienced it, and my experience is that you never really have that moment like you see in movies where you realize you're a hero or an asshole. I find that the line is never that definite, that I'm usually a bit of both."

Thus far, Rosenthal has worked exclusively with Keret. Adapting his work for Crazy Glue, then working with him on $9.99 and even taking part in the Sundance Writers Lab together, the duo now seem to operate with a shared brain—making the process even more synergistic, if not completely objective. "Taking part in the (Sundance) process was immeasurably helpful," Rosenthal explains. "Seeing what people were responding to in our script, finding new ways to accomplish our goals—it's just so helpful sometimes to get that fresh perspective on your work."

Another of Keret's strengths as a writer, and this is especially where Rosenthal's style of animation finds its strongest foothold in his work, is his use of metaphor. There is an otherworldly feel to the naturalistic puppets she uses, and when your characters include an angel, men who stand a couple inches tall, and a piggy bank that stands in for God, an otherworldly feel is exactly what is called for.

It also frees up the storytelling to go farther than it could were it being shot live-action. Whether you're talking about the extremes to which a person will go for love, or the intervention some need to get over their fears—when you're not bound by the practical universe, you can take your allegory to a shocking extent that the audience will almost certainly not see coming.

One of the stories, that of a young boy and his piggy bank, typifies the challenges and strengths of their collaborative style. The boy begins his story wanting nothing in this life more than an action figure of his favorite soccer player. His father uses this as an opportunity to teach the boy about earning and saving money, and gives him a piggy bank. At the midpoint of this story, the boy takes the piggy bank into school for show-and-tell, and we hear a child reason out the idea of unconditional love. It is a moving scene, not just for its subject matter, but because it is the culmination of all that Keret and Rosenthal have done up to this point. And to hear them tell it, it was the hardest scene to adapt.

Originally, the short story was written in the first-person narrative. The character did not just say the monologue as we see in the film, but also had to describe the pig, describe the action of putting coins into the pig, and describe the face of the pig in a way that seemed to vary while remaining completely unchanged. Translating this to film, they were able to embrace the visual aspect and simply show us the coins, the pig, and its face. Another change that was made was the character of the Teacher. In the story, the teacher simply sits and listens to her student explain Love to the class. In the film, she is a character from another story, and hearing the child explain Love pushes her to do something she'd been too stubborn to do until then. It's a moment we can all relate to, and while it was a happy accident it feels so right that it's hard to imagine the story without it.

A key theme of the film is the difference between childhood and adolescence. It celebrates the innocence and naiveté of childhood, knowing that it is temporary and with every generation lasts less and less time. Counter that with adolescence, a stage many never seem to grow beyond. Or, as Keret puts it, "Children don't try to touch your boobs; adolescents do."

Obviously, Keret and Rosenthal are very happy with the film, as both wish to continue crafting ensemble films. "I've worked on two films now," says Keret, "and both are ensemble films. I think there's something about the intensity I like to write with that translates better in that format. Instead of taking one short story and making it carry 90 to 100 pages, it feels much more natural to use several correlated stories to explore a central idea or theme." As for Rosenthal, just like when she was a kid, she wants to try it all. "As a genre, I think ensemble films are my favorite. But as a filmmaker, I want to test my abilities and work on films that are more focused on a single character, as well as shoot live-action and everything else I have yet to try."

Rosenthal is currently at work adapting a children's book and reading scripts for her next film. Keret will soon be publishing another book of short stories, as well as a novella. Yet, despite all of their individual goals and pursuits, both express a certainty that we will see another Keret/Rosenthal collaboration.



Adam Stovall spends his time watching the movies that are in theaters, and writing the ones he wishes were.



$9.99 courtesy Regent Releasing

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