The Crying Man

2007–ongoing

The Crier is a variable video installation comprised of eleven segments, as of 2020. The project, filmed over more than a decade, reveals the aging of my father, as well as the relationship between us. Each year, I directed my father as he cried while listening to the song If One Day, by the Iranian singer Faramarz Aslani.

My father, an immigrant, exiled from Iran to Ashdod about thirty years ago, becomes emotional every time he hears the song and weeps in front my camera. I use the emotional effect on him to spur him to cry. His recurring presentation in this situation enables my to stir the viewer and at the same time ridicule the act by repeating it.

In this work, I focus on the entry of my father into the emotional space of memory. In addition, the work is a testimony to the enormous gap that remains to this day, between the culture he came from and the Israeli society in which he lives. In Israeli society, the sight of a grown man crying is not an acceptable image and exceeds the customary representations of masculinity. Whereas, in Iranian society, the image of a man crying attests to sensitivity and emotional depth and is not considered a sign of weakness.

Installation view at Katana Villa, Menofim Festival 2018

Installation view at Katana Villa, Menofim Festival 2018

If One Day

Words and music: Faramarz Aslani

If one day
If one day you leave me . . . Without telling me
I will become the slave of my dreams . . . I will again be alone
I will tell the night to be with me . . . I will tell the wind to sing until dawn
To sing of the place of my love . . . Why did you go and leave me alone

If you forget me . . . And leave my embrace
I will become a seabird . . . I will surrender to the waves
I will tell my heart to be still . . . I will leave so that all may know
I will go to a place where . . . You won't leave me alone

If one day I hear your name
And your sadness will touch me
I will tell my heart to pay it no heed . . . To let the pain of you heal
Let it spread through my body . . . That I might sing for you again
That I might sing for you again

If you want us to be lovers once more
Like the days when we would stay up until dawn 
Your heart needs to be colored [cured] . . . So that the music can enter it once more
So that it will be colored with the color of that place . . .  Where you won’t leave me alone
If you want to stay by my side . . . Come so long as there is youth
Come so long as there is flesh on the bones . . .  Don’t let my heart remain alone
Let my night be colored . . . That the music will return to it
So that it will be colored with the color of that place . . .  Where you won’t leave me alone

If one day I hear your name
And your sadness will touch me
I will tell my heart to pay it no heed . . . To let the pain of you pass
Let it spread through my body . . . So that I might sing to you again

So that I may sing to you again

So that I may sign to you again

So that I may sing to you again