Ibrahim is a Palestinian who worked as an Israeli spy for 20 years. He lives with his family in Tel Aviv, Israel, but he is not an accepted member of that society. The government has not issued his ID card yet, and the life of his family stands on shaky ground. When his wife, Yusra, visits her family, her relatives try to kill her young daughter to take vengeance on her husband’s treachery. When she goes back to her husband, he becomes furious and forbids her from meeting with her family for several months. The precarious life of this family betrays a strange sense of tragedy. Yusra, a woman with a bent back who looks older than she actually is, seldom leaves her home. Her sons go in and out of jail one by one. Israeli police try to get the sons to follow their father’s path and work as spies.

When they refuse, they put them in jail for whatever crime they can come up with. While those two nations use him as their tool, without granting him full acceptance, Ibrahim alone is so proud of himself. Even though his family suffers because of what he did, he behaves like any other patriarchal father. And his sons fall into another path of misfortune. The Collaborator and His Family is an anti-sentimental recording of Ibrahim’s family, who live through normalized tragedy. The film’s apathetic, factual attitude creates almost ironical scenes with great intensity. (KIM Young-jin)​