A grammar is a system of rules, a structure in which meaning can be created and communicated between individuals who share a common language. "Intimate Grammar", a film by Nir Bergman, is a poignant investigation of the metaphoric and emotional terrain of grammar, through the experiences of Aharon Kleinfeld, a boy growing up in Jerusalem of the 1960s. Based on the novel "The Book of Intimate Grammar" by David Grossman (Hebrew 1991), the film is one of eight Israeli films competing for the Haggiag Family Awards in memory of Robert Nissim Haggiag for Best Full-Length Feature in the Jerusalem Film Festival.
Passed on from parent to child, grammar comes naturally to native speakers of a language, acquired without effort or consciousness. A three year old is easily more of an expert than the student of a foreign language who labors painfully to memorize a set of rules.
Within the context of a shared grammar we know what to expect: we can expect to understand others, and in turn, to be understood. What happens when the rules are broken? When the familiar rules no longer apply, or have been forgotten? What happens when the practitioners of a language are not native speakers?
These questions are part of the history of every language as it changes over time, reinvented and reinventing those who speak their lives within its codes of meaning. Incremental changes are continuously, often imperceptibly integrated into the language. A dramatic change can cause a rift in the continuity of language and meaning, a break in the system which from the perspective of history can be described as a new grammar.
