PLAYFULNESS, PLAY WITH A CHILD, CHILDREN ARE YOUR GREATEST TEACHERS.

MEIR Zarchi is a man of mystery. Since his little-noticed 1978 film Day of the Woman was renamed I Spit on Your Grave and became one of the most discussed flicks ever, he has mostly kept silent.For those of you who may not have heard of it, I Spit on Your Grave is a rape-revenge film, made on the cheap, with no music, basic cinematography, barely-there acting. It's a two-act drama in which a virginal woman is brutalised by redneck rapists and, as a result, becomes a vigilante.
The film's unflinching style continues to give heartburn to conservative commentators, pro-censorship lobbies, feminists, film theorists, horror/gore/slasher fans. It makes both men and women uneasy to see what happens to the beautiful heroine, played by Camille Keaton.
On its re-release in US cinemas in 1981, I Spit on Your Grave lasted a week after the widely read critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave it a big thumbs down. Shocked and horrified, they labelled it ``the most disgusting film ever made'' and launched a campaign to save America from its perilous influence. They succeeded in removing it from cinemas, but without their hyperbole the film may well have been just another screen footnote, a rarity available only on scratchy video to genre fans.
On the eve of the release here of a special-edition uncut DVD, the writer-director-producer-editor is on the phone from his home in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles. Zarchi is as cunning as a fox _ any attempt to extract information he doesn't want to share is met with a change of subject, a flirtatious diversion. His biographical details are sparse, although we know he was born in Palestine in 1934 and moved to the US as a student during the 1960s. He speaks with a heavy Israeli accent. Information about his film career is sketchy, although he says he has been working in the industry since he was very young. Just three films bear the Zarchi name and he is more than happy to talk about the one he likes to call Day of the Woman.

When the film was banned in the US, Zarchi thought it would sink without trace, but trouble has proved to be a good thing _ and not only for the bottom line. ``Controversy is healthy, because it makes people think and talk and see it from many sides ...'' he says. ``It tackles a lot of issues, crime and punishment, rape and revenge, an eye for an eye. Does an eye for an eye make two people blind? Does the punishment justify the crime?''
Zarchi is an Old Testament kind of guy. He explains that he was inspired to make this film by a real-life incident, when he and a friend came upon a woman who had been attacked and was wandering naked, dazed and injured. They put the woman in their car and, instead of taking her to hospital, went to a police station. This was a huge mistake, he says, and he watched the policemen treat her with coldness and cruelty.
His remonstrations didn't help so, as Zarchi puts it, he made Day of the Woman. ``If something happens to you, would you think of taking revenge? Should you fight fire with fire? Well, you know, if my enemy blinded me, I would rather have him blinded as well. If he blinds me in one eye, I would rather have him blinded in both eyes. Nothing is wrong with that, I think that's the only way to get even, because if you go through the legal system, you know what would happen to you.''
Many, many rapes aren't reported because the legal system will cut you to pieces, he says. ``That's how it is in America. Look now at Kobe Bryant. He is a 7ft (2.1m) guy who supposedly raped a 19-year-old girl. He is a guy who makes $10 million, $20 million, $30 million a year, a superstar basketball player. She went to the police and, in court, the defendants said she is going to bed with everybody _ that she is a whore! So there you are. Even if she is a whore, does he have the right to rape her? Did he rape her? We don't know, it was behind closed doors. In the movie we see, so we know.''
Zarchi's zeal translated into a film that has twisted moral watchdogs into knots ever since. The history of censorship is punctuated with moments of lunacy, not least the recent kerfuffles here over Baise-moi, Ken Park and Romance. I Spit on Your Grave was originally banned by Australian censors, then unbanned, made available on video in a cut version, banned again and is now available on DVD.
``Just a few months ago I made a deal with South Korea,'' says Zarchi, who has kept a tight hold on rights to his film. ``I last sold the movie to South Korea in the early 1990s, it was there for five years. Commentators went on television to tell Korean women not to copycat the film in the event that their husband or lover ... and the government banned it.''
On the one hand Zarchi laughs at wowsers and those who want to limit artistic freedom: ``The moment the Internet came into being, the censor was completely invalidated,'' he says. But he is infuriated by the hyperbole aimed at his film. ``It's imbecilic! What, are we imbeciles? Besides that, who can tell you, me or anybody else, what to eat, what to think, what to agree with, what to disagree with? Do you control my mind, my thoughts? I was wondering about Australia, especially after the movie played there for five years in the mid-'80s and so many people saw it _ are those people crazy now, in a mental institution because they saw this movie?''
So is the film a radical feminist anthem or entertainment for perverts? Empowerment or exploitation? None of the above. Back in 1978, Zarchi almost accidentally tapped into concerns that were swirling around the collective US unconscious _ principally unease about the rise of feminism and female empowerment.
His movie is not funny enough to be so-good-it's-bad, not well enough made to be a classic, disturbing because of the protracted scenes of sexual assault. But somehow it's more than the sum of its parts _ and it's still got legs.
``Two years after this movie was made nobody wanted it. Nobody! I'm talking about distributors, big, small and in between. They said this movie will not make a penny. It was 1979 and there were only four or five video distributors in the US. They all said: `Come on forget it, nobody will buy this movie, let alone rent it'.''
Meir Zarchi laughs and laughs, last and longest.

Not seen this film yet.......still not too sure if i iwill, however it does appear to bring up points that make you think.