Published: 15 November 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Half a century on, The Big Dig is a landmark of Israeli cinema, both in terms of its technical innovations as well as its insights into Israeli society.
A few weeks ago, the Israeli Ministry of Transport announced yet another delay to the opening of the first Tel Aviv light rail Line (The Red line) that was scheduled to open in November. The light rail project, which has had many challenges, was approved in 1996 and the original opening was scheduled for 2012.
The deadline for the other two lines (Purple and Green) is 2027. According to a report by the daily business newspaper The Marker, there are 1300 active construction sites that block many of the Tel Aviv’s main roads and dramatically reduce parking spaces.
For decades, the residents of Tel Aviv have been feeling like the residents of Allenby Street who, in the 1969 satire The Big Dig, endure traffic jams, constant road work and a municipality in chaos.
In Ephraim Kishon’s film, which is being screened at JIFF next month, Kazimir Blaumilch, a mentally ill man with a digging compulsion, escapes from an asylum and begins digging a ditch in central Tel Aviv. After stealing a jackhammer and compressor, he proceeds to dig-up one of Tel Aviv's busiest traffic junctions in front of the legendary Mugrabi cinema.
City officials assume the dig is a part of the city’s plans and order the municipality and the police to help. Complaints from local residents, whose lives become a nightmare due to the noise and traffic jams, lead to infighting among city departments.
To complete the work before the upcoming municipal elections, the city sends an army of construction workers and heavy equipment to help Blaumilch, transforming an annoyance into a disaster.
By the time city officials realise what’s happening, it’s too late: Allenby Street is connected to the Mediterranean Sea and a canal is created. The mayor declares, in a grand opening ceremony, that Tel Aviv has been turned into the “Venice of the Middle East”.
