Short Film Studies - Volume 6, Issue 2, 2016

Draft tells about the last night that an 18-year-old boy spends with his widowed father at home before beginning his compulsory military service. The situation between the two is tense, not only because of the objective circumstances, but mainly because the father tries to project his own military experience onto his son.

Exploring the relationship between text and authorship, this article will attempt to trace the voice of a female film-maker in a film that deals with masculinity. The director’s voice resonates between the two main (male) characters’ fragile masculinity and is reflected by the image of the missing mother.

Made after the collapse of the Oslo peace process, Draft expresses the sense of failure and disorientation of left-wing Israeli ideologies and their replacement with more nationalistic right-wing views. Through the analysis of mise-en-scène and the film’s use of narrow point of view (PoV), the article will depict Draft’s political allegory of disillusion.