The politics of David Perlov’s camera

May 1973, I buy a camera, I want to start filming by myself and for myself. Professional cinema does no longer attract me. To look for something else, I want to approach the everyday, above all, in anonymity. It takes time to learn how to do it. ❧ This is how David Perlov’s six hour film Diary starts, it ends in 1983. The film depicts a portrait of the artist and his family in Tel Aviv where he lives, in Sao Paolo where he grew up, and in Paris where he got his cultural and cinema education during his 20s. ❧ Throughout this time Perlov’s two twin daughters get drafted to the army, major governmental changes happens and two wars erupt. Perlov surveys the world from his very ordinary point of view, searching for information from the windows that surround him: photographing his loved ones change, filming his television, obsessively looking at the street out his window and trying to understand subtle transformations. Perlov becomes no more than a viewer of the world, he situates himself almost as a victim of time and circumstance. ❧ The Diary is a result of a crisis. A crisis that is a combination of personal depression, dissatisfaction with his love for cinema and a real difficulty to integrate into Israeli society especially with its problematic political reality. ❧ Less then a minute into the film, the camera finds Naomi, his daughter, inviting him to join her for a soup; Perlov’s voiceover says, "The warm soup is tempting but I know I must choose, from now on to eat the soup or to film the soup". This is the decision that Perlov makes. From this moment on, his life becomes his work of art. All separations between personal life, politics and art fall. The cinema that he had grown up with, its sets and plots lose all relevance. The more he can exclude the cinematic event the more the work becomes about being.