From Israel to India, why is everyone watching Fauda?
Lior Raz lost his real-life girlfriend after a Palestinian terrorist stabbed her.
Two bald Israeli men, both in their late 40s now, suddenly took the action and adventure genre on OTT platforms by storm in 2015 with Fauda. The first season, running roughly over seven hours, had people glued to their screens even though most could not comprehend the language being spoken and hardly knew the actors. People binge-read the subtitles for hours and then waited for the next season.
The next season and then the next only took Fauda’s popularity to newer nations. For Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff, there has been no looking back since 2015. With the third season now aired and declared a success by most critics, Fauda creators Lior and Avi are currently basking in the success that left them surprised too. Nobody really knows the exact formula to turn a work of art into success. Sequels and seasons of the most successful movies and TV series can falter and flounder. They often do. Fauda doesn’t.
So how did Lior and Avi create this perfect mix?
To begin with, Fauda was made in Arabic and Hebrew. Chances of it getting accepted beyond the fuzzy borders of the two nations were bleak. Truth be told, the chances of Fauda finding audience in Palestine were also low because this was a series about an Israeli undercover unit that hunts down Palestinian terrorists. There were no big names associated with the series. Not someone with international fame either. It’s the series that went on to make its actors and creators big.
Many have watched Fauda for the first time with Season 3 and have binged on it right from Season 1. That would roughly work out to 24 hours of binging on a series with subtitles. Despite no knowledge or understanding of the language, nobody watches it on mute. The creators say they would never opt for dubbed versions because that would kill the authenticity of Fauda. Lior and Avi actually put their bet on making the series as authentic as possible. Lior has himself served as an undercover agent for an elite Israeli unit and Avi is known as a journalist with one of the deepest insights of the politics and terrorism that has turned the region into a tinderbox of violence.
All those shown to be Palestinian in the series are actually Palestinians. All those shown as Israeli, are Israelis by nationality. That is why no accent is fake or acquired. It shows in the acting even when the sounds sound like Greek and Latin to viewers not familiar with Arabic and Hebrew.
Fauda is an Arabic word, but is also used by Israeli undercover agents when their identity is busted. This one word is used by Arabic speakers for chaos and by Israeli agents to convey to their handlers that they have been exposed. Chaos unites warring parties – not just in the Middle East, but also beyond.
In fact when the first season of Fauda was being shot, Israel and Palestine were engaged in the 2014 Gaza War. Israeli and Palestinian actors of Fauda shot through the war and when required, ducked under bunkers together even as Israel and Palestine hurled missiles at each other.
Everyone suffers in a conflict. Fauda depicts that suffering by humanising its characters. A terrorist is not just a terrorist. He is a father, a bother and a lover. The series is no propaganda movie which shows good guys don’t do bad things and bad guys don’t do good things. All sorts of people do all sorts of things to survive and thrive.
Doron Kabilio (played by Lior Raz) is the hero who is losing everything from his temper, to his son’s love, to his father, to the women he loves and lusts for. He is not the hero who beats up the bad guys and walks home with the babes. On his bad days, he is the divorced man who walks back to a shabby couch in a nondescript room all alone and lonely after on-field action. On his good days, he is the free bird who gets invited by smart and sexy women for action in bed. The bombs and bullets scar him – physically and mentally.
Lior lost his real-life girlfriend after a Paletinian terrorist stabbed her. Years later, at an event, he met a relative of the man who killed the “love of his life”. Lior hugged the man, but couldn’t say a word to him. People who come from conflict zones live through such conflicting emotions pretty much every day. Fauda comes very close to depicting what it is like to be that person living in that zone, where forgiving is important to move on, but forgetting seldom possible.
In Season 2 Episode 11, Nidal aka El Makdessi comes very close to killing Doron and the specter of death looming so close sends our hero in Fauda into a shock even as he is dragged out by his teammates. Ever heard of heroes getting shocked at the sight of violence? If your answer is no, you haven’t watched Fauda yet.
Lior has the conventional looks of a hero. That enhances his appeal. Bollywood actors from the 60s and 70s had pot bellies and flaunted regular clothes. That created an illusion that it was possible to be them. Lior does the same. He looks imitable and appears gettable. Perhaps, that explains his popularity among women.
Fauda is as popular among men as it is among women. Lior is just one reason. The other reason is the blending of relationships, love, longing and real-life drama with guns and grenades. But all in perfect balance.
And it’s not just Lior. All members of the Israeli unit and many of the terrorists have been humanised through the layers of relationships they take cover under when not being an agent or not playing the terrorist.
There is humour too and language fails to act as a barrier in people getting the same joke despite living on different latitudes and longitudes across the globe.
The makers of the show have pursued detailing to the last word. The third season kicks off from Gaza, and many have been surprised to find out that it isn’t really Gaza. The place is actually called Jisr az-Zarqa, an Arab/Israeli village, near the Israeli city of Haifa. Jisr az-Zarqa has an army camp that has been built to resemble Gaza to train Israeli soldiers. All Team Fauda had to do was get in a lot of extras to populate the place which otherwise only has soldiers.
When teammates die, Lior’s unit gathers to mourn over coffee and whiskey and lavishly spread out meals. They help out each other in cooking and cleaning. Unlike other action-packed works of art, Fauda focuses on humanising people who are forced by their circumstances to kill.
The Israel-Palestine conflict, the Jews versus Muslims bloodbath, has been watched closely by world for years. Fauda is being watched equally – if not more – intently now.