Fantastic Fest invites you to learn The Altman Method!
So much has been written about ordinary people doing terrible things, which they justify for whatever reasons make them sleep at night. Nazism is the biggest modern example of the banality of evil, but sometimes examining it on a small scale can be just as frightening as the larger picture. Nadav Aronowicz’s “The Altman Method” is an Israeli thriller that takes a microscopic look into one particular abyss.
Noa and Uri Altman are middle-class Israelis who are struggling financially. Noa is a pregnant actress who struggles to teach a music class and Uri teaches karate in a public gym. Their lives are turned upside-down when Uri kills a Muslim woman in self-defense. Since Uri happens to teach self-defense, the couple become local celebrities. Uri winds up on the news and enrollment skyrockets in their respective classes. Noa can finally afford the mall jewelry she wants and Uri rebrands his technique as the “Altman Method,” which he used to bravely fight off the attacker.
And everyone lives happily ever after! Until you remember you’re watching a film at Fantastic Fest.
Uri explaining why it’s not pronounced “Karaté.”
Eventually, Noa begins to see other sides of Uri’s story. Things don’t add up, and Uri is pretty quick to have her reenact the attack for a gross and tasteless commercial for his class. Where did her knife go? But maybe she’s getting ahead of herself. Who would lie about something like that?
“The Altman Method” is less a slow burn than a feature-length simmer. There’s barely any score, as Aronowicz makes you lean in to share Noa’s internal realizations that her husband, and the future father of her child, could be a monster. There are moments in the film where the two of them just look at each other, which somehow drip with tension. Aronowicz presents a keen awareness of people who justify the terrible things they do, without laying it on too thick. I wish it was a little thicker to be honest, as the film itself could have lost about 20 minutes.
Noa, deep in a thought she can’t escape.
Absolutely no part of this would work if not for the performances of Maayan Weinstock as Noa and Nir Barak as Uri. Weinstock’s subtle reactions carry us through until we discover the truth, but Barak walks away with the film by the end. Though he looks like a Kirkland-brand Andrew Tate, he and Aronowicz (who also wrote the script) avoid the pitfalls of manosphere stereotypes. Uri is a mild-mannered, decent guy. Isn’t he? There’s a shorter, tauter version of “The Altman Method” somewhere in there, but Aronowicz and his cast make the film resonate.
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