An American prisoner Al-Qaeda freed by the army in Iraq, and a bipolar CIA spy who wonders if the prisoner has not been “turned”. This is the initial pitch of Homelanda punchy and geopolitical series that made an impression before The Office of Legends.
But in fact Homeland is inspired by an Israeli series.“I was living in Los Angeles at the time, remembers its author Gideon Raff, and I came to visit Israel, my country, every two years. And when you do that, you feel like this place that’s supposed to be home is suddenly a little different. And it’s a horrible feeling. Then I thought, What if you can’t go home and you really want to? And I started to study the subject of prisoners of war.”
“To my amazement, I discovered that there is a whole world of drama that we don’t deal with in Israel. We are fighting for the return of our soldiers. But once they come back, we don’t doesn’t want to hear from them anymore. We need a happy ending.”
Gideon Raffat franceinfo
“And the truth is, it’s not a happy ending. And I wanted to start the show on the day most people thought the show ended, which was the return of the captive soldiers. , and see what happens.”
This will give Hatufim, (Abducted). Two seasons available on Prime Video, which follow three Israeli soldiers captured in Lebanon, released 17 years later, and who must learn to reintegrate. The series mainly shows the trauma suffered by these returned prisoners. “These people who come back from war, who come back from captivity, face a post-trauma, explains Gideon Raff. And I think to understand post-trauma, you also have to feel a little bit about the trauma.”
This series Hatufilm is not violent, but it does not skimp on the torments undergone in captivity. A choice of Gideon Raff:
“You know, one of the things that shocked me the most about prisoners of war, when I started to do research and meet former prisoners of war, was that the psychological games inflicted were more harmful than physical games. One of them, who spent five years in captivity in Abu Jabril, Lebanon, and whom no one knew was alive for the first four years, told me that when he was thrown into this hole, he never knew when the doors would open again.
He didn’t know when, and if he was going to be able to eat again. He didn’t know if his family knew he was alive. He didn’t know who had won the war. He knew nothing at all. So when the door finally opened and they took him out, even though he knew he was going to be tortured, he told me he only felt joy, because he was no longer alone.
A year later, Hollywood took over the series and turned it into Homeland.