Essayistic Travelogues in Israel: Between Anticipated Wonders and Encountered Realities

ABSTRACT: This essay examines a corpus of essayistic travelogues filmed in Israel by non-Israeli filmmakers between 1960 and 1974, a period marked by political upheaval, shifting global perceptions, and the consolidation of Israeli national identity. These films—by Chris Marker, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jules Dassin, Michael Mindlin Jr., Michael Roemer, Susan Sontag, and Claude Lanzmann—negotiate the tension between pre-existing ideological projections and the complexities of the land they encounter. Rather than adhering to conventional touristic or colonialist gazes, they employ self-reflexive and essayistic strategies to interrogate the representational challenges posed by Israel’s layered and contested landscape. Central to this analysis is Roemer’s Faces of Israel (1966), an observational documentary that captures Israel on the brink of the Six-Day War. Roemer, whose engagement with Jewish identity and ethical Zionism shaped his perspective, presents Israel as a nation oscillating between historical trauma, military preparedness, and collectivist aspirations. His film, like the other travelogues discussed, reveals the filmmaker’s evolving relationship with Israel, often culminating in ambivalence, disillusionment, or transformation. By engaging with theories of space, place, and representation in relation to the cinematic travelogue, I explore how these essayistic films resist fixed narratives, ultimately redefining the travelogue as a space of inquiry rather than of resolution.