“…Arcadia is the most troubling of Lapid’s current output. Filmed in the
lower depths of a Tel Aviv downtown, a naked man, drugged, bangs his head against concrete walls as he staggers and falls, trying aimlessly to regain
control of his own body. The naked man, in his most degraded state, is
observed by a local prostitute who tries to get help for him as events follow.
His identity is not clear. What is he a victim of? The prostitute tells the
camera her ordeal as she comes to his aid. Her intervention makes us shift
our sympathies and our emotional focus constantly.
A deeply moving exploration of man on the lowest rung of society, this film
also allows the viewer to hear Lapid’s interventions. In this dark piece the
artist interrogates a variety of issues, from the performance of bodies through storytelling to the camera's ability to show simultaneously raw and
performative acts and behaviour.
As the viewer becomes a performer, the film also explores the question of
the film-maker as voyeur. What is the moral responsibility of the observer,
to record or to intervene?”

(Julia Pascal)