The killing of 378 people at the Oct. 7, 2023, open-air Nova Music Festival, plus hundreds in the neighborhoods of Southern Israel, has been given the dramatic treatment in two separate docudrama series on HBO Max and Paramount+, both airing exactly two years to the day that the real-life events occurred.
People around the world woke up to the news that a crowd gathered to enjoy music, food and dancing had been killed on festival grounds approximately three miles from the Gaza Strip. Further news reports revealed that more Israelis had also been killed or taken hostage while in their homes. Hostages were taken to Gaza and the remaining members of their families or friends were left to wait, plead and pray for their release. The result has been a renewed war between Israelis and Palestinians that, only late last week, was in early peace talks.
Aside from retelling a terrible historical event, “Red Alert” and “One Day in October,” share writing, directing and structural similarities. Both HBO Max and Paramount+ give viewers fast-paced, real-time, you-are-there-style storytelling. Both feature native Israeli actors and were shot in Israel, some events are exactly as they happened while others have been dramatized. Both used location extras; many of them the same people who lived through the actual attacks. Neither series focuses on politics. Finally, both give the victims a name. Whether literally or figuratively, there is an opportunity to know the people as they struggle to save their lives, the lives of their family and those along the way.
“Red Alert”
“Red Alert” is a four-part series released on Paramount+. It starts with a look into the lives of several families that will be severely impacted by the events of Oct. 7. Ohad (Miki Leon) and Bat Sheva (Rotem Sela) are happily raising their three children in the suburbs when they hear rockets going off. They quickly run to the safe room. Across town, Tali (Sarit Vino-Elad) and her children are home when they too hear the rockets. Tali’s son (Nevo Katan), an officer, grabs his gun and leaves to fight. Kobi (Israel Atias) is a policeman on evening drug detail at the Nova Music Festival while his wife Nofar (Chen Amsalem Zaguri), also a police officer, is assigned to morning detail at the festival. They meet each other as one is coming, the other going. Israeli immigrant Ayub (Hisham Suleiman) and his wife (Rotem Abuhab), child and friends are driving when the unthinkable happens.
Sela, an award-winning actress and TV show host in Israel, gives a riveting performance as Bat Sheva, a mother who must find steely determination to survive. Hisham Suleiman’s portrayal of Ayub is a heart-wrenching look into a man who must find strength after his wife is killed and he is forced on the run with his infant son. Suleiman movingly catches Ayub’s multitude of feelings — trying to escape, the shock of his pregnant wife being shot and killed while beside him in the car, and having to leave her body as he runs to save himself and their son.
Under the direction of Lior Chefetz (“The Stronghold”) and executive producer Lawrence Bender (“An Inconvenient Truth,” “Inglourious Bastards”), scenes are a quick rush of facial closeups, pristine homes and backyards, roads and fields, noises and gunfire.
“One Day In October”
HBO Max’s “One Day in October,” produced by Fox Entertainment and Yes TV, takes two intimate looks at how trauma affects those put in harm’s way. Imagine you went to a festival, danced and then slept on the blankets you brought. Sometime in the early morning hours rockets break out and shortly after armed men are on site shooting to kill anyone within sight. Terrified, you and your BFF run inside one of the outdoor toilets. There you stay for so long that you lose track of time, also you’re coming off a mild drug high. That’s what happens to Amit (Swell Ariel Or) and her best friend Gali (Noa Kedar) in the first episode, titled “Sunrise.”
As they stay hidden inside the small space, Gali begins to hallucinate, or possibly imagine, that a drawing of an evil eye on the wall is actually illuminated. Despite the gunfire and the footsteps growing closer, the young women resolve to stay inside for as long as possible. The emotional glue of their close, longtime friendship holds as they comfort each other with hugs and jokes. Creator/director Oded Davidoff, creator/producers Daniel Finkelman, Chaya Amor and the writing team’s deft storytelling is an intimate picture of seesawing between the knowledge that death could be moments away and fighting nervous exhaustion.
The second episode available for reviews, titled “Light of My Light,” focuses on a woman’s loss of one of her sons, her husband and the trauma she and her other children experience as they try to move on with their lives. This is the true story of Sabine Taasa (Yael Abcassis) who lost her son and her husband on Oct. 7 during the attacks in Netiv Haasara. Of her remaining three sons, two come close to losing an eye and limbs but recover.
Later, the French-born Taasa goes on a lecture circuit in France. With footage from her home’s security camera, she recalls the violent attack while speaking to the Jewish communities and the press to mixed results. Clearly still very fragile, she finds herself easily upset by those who do not seem to readily understand what she and her sons have endured. She focuses on her lost son Or’s last moments. She tells someone that his name means light. Traveling with a nanny, she is nevertheless on high alert to her surviving sons’ trauma and needs. Abcassis, under the direction of Davidoff, captures all the anger and dignity of a woman wounded by loss but determined to tell the world. Her face is at once sad, radiant and in the next moment defiant.
Only in one scene involving a television broadcast does the political divide come front and center in the form of a reporter alluding to the cause of the attacks. Taasa answers by talking about the camera footage at her home. “My children are in that film. It’s our lives… Do you want to tell them what they endured is political?”
As the world watches and waits to see if peace can be achieved, one thing is clear: “Red Alert” and “One Day in October” are stories that vividly show the price without it.
“Red Alert” and “One Day in October” are now streaming on Paramount+ and HBO Max, respectively.
