How do you write about the subject of satire without turning it into a history lesson on the origins of the art of lampooning culture and society to underline the hypocrisies and ironies that populate – if not outright define – everyday life? The truth is that it’s a fool’s errand, one that is usually reserved for those who think that they have something new to say about one of the oldest forms of cultural commentary known to us. However, on occasion we do find works that tend to help us understand the extraordinary ability of art to reconfigure how we view particular subjects – and in the case of Nadav Lapid, it seems like his raison d’etre is to criticise society and its many peculiarities through works that are not always built from his intention to make audiences laugh, but rather lean into the inherent absurdity that tends to punctuate everyday existence. This is where he gets the inspiration for Yes! (Hebrew: כן!), which is unquestionably one of the year’s most controversial, challenging works. The premise is simple – Y is a dedicated husband and father, as well as an extremely hard-working musician who spends time making connections with high-ranking officials and members of the social elite. As a result, he is hired to write a new national anthem for Israel in the aftermath of the October 7th attacks. What appears to be a relatively simple assignment eventually turns into something much more challenging, with the ambitious young artist finding himself on a metaphysical journey that seems to exist at the perfect intersection between the works of Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett, leading to a series of surreal misadventures around the country as he feverishly attempts to complete the task, discovering more about his country and its origins, as well as the political and social situation, than he could have ever imagined possible when taking on this job. A mercilessly dark, daring tragicomedy that is fearless enough to not only directly address the current state of the Middle East and its conflicts, but also do so in a way where its stance is left deliberately ambigious (although a knowledge of where the director himself stands does ease our mind in terms of the overall intentions of this film), leading us down a path where nothing quite makes sense, but we cannot help but be entirely entranced, and perhaps a bit curious, about all the ideas that ultimately come to inform this unhinged and brilliant work.

The process of understanding what Yes! is trying to achieve requires the ability to acknowledge that politics, regardless of how you view it, is an extraordinarily dirty business, one that can corrupt even the most innocent and well-meaning of individuals. The moment one decides to step into the political arena, regardless of intentions or the extent to which they will be involved, is when they take a stance. In most cases, this is a subtle choice, and one that we often don’t realise we are always making – but for a story that revolves around the genocide in Gaza, told from the perspective of an Israeli director who has always made it clear that he is sympathetic to the cause of the Palestinian people, we find that it is a bold and brash announcement.  In this instance, Lapid draws from the real-life case of a famous songwriter whose own song was adapted (without permission from the artist’s family after his death) to be a celebration of Israel’s occupation of Gaza, filled with disturbing imagery and the manipulation of facts. As a result, this film is rooted in one very simple question: Is art always political? Those who frequently engage with any medium will know that this is very much easy to answer, since it would be nearly impossible to find a work of art that isn’t at least partially designed as a response to some broader social or cultural issue – but in the case of Yes!, there is absolutely no ambiguity. This is a film about a man who sees his entire life falling apart as a result of his conscious decision to work with the government by composing a new national anthem. It seems simple enough, and there doesn’t seem to be any legitimate reason why it cannot simply be the product of someone loving their country without acknowledging their actions. Yet, as the film progresses, we see Y falling deeper into a state of existential angst, proving to himself (and others) that you simply cannot participate in these activities without it being viewed as an endorsement. Obviously, the director approaches the subject in a more nuanced way, since it would be both inappropriate and frankly quite boring to see these points delivered in a straightforward, matter-of-fact manner. Instead, Lapid chooses to design it as a picaresque journey of someone whose entire life begins to fall apart as a result of the crisis of identity and faith he has through working on this piece.

There is an extraordinarily fickle boundary between good satire and bad satire, and it often takes many years to determine which of the two is most resonant. However, while it can take many different forms (and where any attempt to create a set of clear guidelines on how to effectively tell such a story is beyond impossible), there are a few instances where we can tell whether or not something is effective as far as satire. Lapid seems to be driven by the principle that a good satirist forces their audience to guess the stance being taken, since there are very few experiences more frustrating than a satire that establishes its intentions clearly and without even an ounce of ambiguity, since it’s usually within those aspects that a work of art tends to attract the most intriguing conversations. Yes! is a film with a very distinct point of view – but we’d struggle to know what that is if we aren’t aware of Lapid and both his artistic approach and his personal views. In recent years, we’ve become so preoccupied with measuring the value of a work based on how closely it adheres to a binary point of view (where a work of art can only exist when it makes its allegiance to one side or the other clear) that something as vague as this film can be positioned as a failure for the exact reasons those who can see its intentions find it to be a total triumph. There is always value in taking a stance, but even more in daring to step across the aisle and lampoon a particular subject from within. Lapid is in a fascinating position as an Israeli filmmaker who is also fundamentally anti-Zionist and profoundly in favour of the pro-Palestine cause, which is something that we may only understand if we are aware of his personal views – but it certainly isn’t restricted to having additional knowledge beyond what is presented to us here, since even at face-value, Yes! is such a sardonic, deeply unnerving film that it would be quite peculiar if anyone walked away from this film feeling that it is a piece of propaganda, when in reality it is the complete inverse: a daring, shockingly bold excursion into the current conflict, handcrafted by a director who has made it very clear that telling a particular story (especially in such a way) should never be equated to endorsement in any conceivable way.

To bring this bold vision to life, Lapid employs various elements that massively aid in his journey to realising these peculiar concepts. Part of the film’s success has to be attributed to NAME, whose performance as Y is one of the year’s most complex and challenging achievements. It’s difficult to play someone who is essentially a bundle of contradictions – he’s a sensitive and well-meaning family man who also happens to indulge in every substance available when he can, which we find represents something much deeper when it comes to how he interacts with the political elite who decide to make him the next target of their potent manipulations. The performance runs the gamut of emotions, transforming both aesthetically and in terms of personality, to the point where we hardly recognise him by the end, showing how he has essentially allowed himself to become corrupted by a system that he never intended to endorse, but cannot resist the temptation when it is offered to him. It also helps that Lapid is as brilliant a visual stylist as he is a storyteller – the entirety of Yes! It is driven by his very specific stylistic approach, with rapid-fire editing (which creates a disorienting and confusing atmosphere, which is always a good place to put your audience when trying to elicit some kind of emotional reaction) and very strange aesthetic decisions in terms of how certain scenes are put together. At 150 minutes, we certainly do spend a lot of time with this film, and it is far from an easy process – but as we’ve come to appreciate with Lapid’s films, every moment is going to be purposeful, especially when it contains such ambitious, daring filmmaking. The best way to describe Yes! would be as a sensory experience, one that acts as an assault on our senses – and like any other work that is defined as such, the only way to truly appreciate it is to just buckle in and allow it to take us on this harrowing, exceptionally unique journey without attempting to justify any of its decisions beyond what we can see on the surface.

Yes! is loud, obnoxious and hopelessly confusing – and a work of unmitigated ingenuity, where everything we think to be a flaw is actually the product of a director whose steadfast commitment to the art of satire is the primary reason this film is such a wholehearted triumph. It goes without saying that this is an acquired taste – how else do we describe a film that uses an ongoing genocide as the foundation for a sardonic, brutal dark comedy about political manipulation and the weakness of the human soul when it comes to choosing between morals and glory, which the director posits are mutually exclusive, at least in terms of the approach he is taking with this film. For that reason, I suspect this is one of those satires that is not going to be appreciated now as it will be in the future, since not only does it feel far more confrontational than it does entertaining (at no point in this film are we supposed to feel comfortable – the awkwardness and frustration we feel are by design, and should not be mistaken for flaws in any way), and I suspect that time will be much kinder to this film, which is a peculiar way to position a satire, which is usually meant to speak to audiences of the day, and any additional admiration from those outside the geographical or temporal borders is just viewed as a bonus. Lapid is such an original voice, a director who refuses to play by the rules, but who instead challenges them in creative and provocative ways, not being afraid to break conventions if it means that the audience leaves with something to think about, even if it is a product of two and a half hours of pure discomfort and confusion. Yes! is not an easy film, nor is it one that necessarily can be enjoyed. However, there is something to be said about cinema as more than just entertainment, and as perhaps the most haunting and daring political statement of the year, it proves to be nothing but pure, unhinged brilliance in both form and content.