Act/Or

The comic-tragic story of the brothers Hula and Natan, two car mechanics from the outskirts of Sderot, a city in the south of Israel constantly bombed by rockets from Gaza. The two live in a caravan in the weedy yard that serves as their garage, surrounded by old jalopies and clunkers. While the situation between Israel and Gaza deteriorates, Hula and Natan's garage, their only source of income, is about to be closed down by the authorities. With a lot of grotesque humor, and under the continuing threat to their lives and work, the two try to survive, but sink deeper and deeper into the depths of fatalistic frustration.

During World War I, Herr Dresser, a German-American professor from West Hoboken, New Jersey, invents a "mustache fixer," which stiffens the whiskers, making the wearer look very fierce. Much to the consternation of Dresser's daughter Elsie, a patriotic American, Kaiser Wilhelm calls them to Berlin to begin mass production of the tonic for the German army. Elsie's boyfriend, Teddy Swift, is particularly disturbed by this turn of events and decides to earn enough money to follow her to Germany. When the United States joins the war, Teddy is among the first to enlist, and soon he finds himself in Berlin trying to help Elsie escape from prison. After several narrow escapes, the two make their way to the mustache factory and blow it up. Brought before the Kaiser, they are rescued when American troops storm the palace, and the Kaiser loses his mustache and the war.

Alexey Suhanok, a Belarusian stand up comedian, lives through the horror of a next-door war by making edgy jokes on the subject. Alas, this self-defense mechanism doesn't stop him from having a nervous breakdown of his own.

Besides protection from bullets and schrapnel, a soldier's helmet has many other useful purposes on the war front. An American soldier who who served as a tank commander under General George Patton tells of everyday uses of his helmet.

Ah, finally. The world lies in ruins, and the time has come to rebuild it. Of course, it would be much easier if the last survivors weren't complete dimwits.