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| Monday, November 28, 2005 |
Ignore the Protocols
Marc Levin's new documentary Protocols of Zion made waves at Sundance this year ... but I'm not really sure why. Yes, the subject matter -- how the controversial Russian Protocols of the Elders of Zion has spurred a century of virulent anti-Semitism -- is a hot button topic that many Jews and non-Jews alike will find interesting.
However, the film's undoing is not in its topic, but in the way Levin attempts to get his message -- whatever that may be -- across to the audience. Levin, who gained notoriety with 1998's Slam, uses the attacks of 9/11 (and the subsequent popularized myth that no Jews were killed in the World Trade Center) as the springboard for his road trip (which barely leaves the New York area) to see how people really feel about Jews in America.
Again, that's all well and good, a fine idea for a compelling documentary. But, unfortunately, Levin gets in the way by driving the film into various differing trajectories. First, he turns it into a father-son flick by dragging his dad along to reminisce about growing up Jewish in the Bronx. Then, one day while filming, he sees something on the news about the war in Iraq and decides to devote 20 minutes to that. Then, on another day of filming, an Arab sheik is murdered. Another 20 minutes about that.
A documentary about any one of these topics would be interesting on their own merit. But Levin has cinematic A.D.D. and is not content to stick with just one. Compound that with the fact that Levin is insistent on being incendiary, and likes to push buttons ... like when he badmouths Arabs ... in front of Arabs.
In any event, it's a Jewish film which means it'll draw the usual crowd of tribe members wishing to see themselves reflected on the silver screen. Nonetheless, you may want to curb your enthusiasm for this one.
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| Monday, November 21, 2005 |
A holiday movie for the rest of us
Siblings Benyamin and Chanie Cohen both went out and saw Ushpizin. While they may have the same genetic code, they don't have the same opinion of this Israeli film.
She said: In the Israeli film Ushpizin, directed by Gidi Dar, two escaped convicts visit an ultra-Orthodox family in the Meah Shearim section of Jerusalem on the holiday of Sukkot, where the couple are going through particularly troubled times of their own.
During the first few minutes of the movie, I have to admit that skepticism overtook me. The last time I saw Chassidic garb on the big screen was in A Stranger Among Us, where Melanie Griffith (not very plausibly) seduces a Chassidic man in Williamsburg. And the gap-toothed convict in the movie brought back childhood memories of the same hokey-looking criminals in Home Alone.
But as the movie progressed, I found myself forgetting my original cynicism, and being drawn into the extremely moving, touching, and even humorous story. The lead actor (who also wrote the script for the film), Shuli Rand, excels at portraying human emotion (without even reading the subtitles, you can interpret his happiness, sadness, and anger just in his eyes), and his on-screen wife (who is actually his real-life spouse), gives a brave and affecting performance herself. The onscreen chemistry between them was clear, without a single kiss shown during the entire movie.
And where with A Stranger Among Us, Orthodox moviegoers found themselves yelling at the screen with the inconsistencies of how unrealistically (and detrimentally) Chassidic life is portrayed, they will find heartening how realistic this movie gets the job done. That's probably because (as I found out afterward), the movie was actually filmed on location in Jerusalem and many of the speaking parts in the film were cast to formerly secular actors who became religious themselves.
The movie's message: everything in life happens for a reason, and the obstacles that we face are tests of faith that we must overcome. Hokey? Yes. But a good time at the movies? Absolutely.
He said: With most movies I see, they rarely ever live up to the hype. So most movies I see are at a tremendous disadvantage. With expectations set high, it's not too often that they actually deliver. George Clooney's sleep-inducing Good Night, and Good Luck is a recent example.
So with Ushpizin, I had heard this was It's A Wonderful Life for Jews (which, admittedly, piqued my interest). That, I knew, was already strike one. I already knew it wasn't actually going to be a classic and timeless holiday film that would be cherished for generations and aired on television every year.
Nonetheless, I was still excited. So let me say it now: This film is not bad, but it's not that great either. It's got a ho-hum storyline and the acting is just fine. But like every other Jewish film I see, it preys on such stereotypes as to make the film an unenjoyable experience. Why does every movie with Jews in it have to show such extremes -- a Chassid, an atheist? Why can't the American public be exposed to non-fanatics such as, and this is just one example, Modern Orthodox Jews -- who lead realtively average lives of being a doctor or a lawyer, but also keep kosher and observe Shabbat?
Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is one of the most prescient shows on television today, comes close to showing America what a "normal" Jew is in this country. This season alone has shown High Holiday services, a Passover Seder, and Larry affixing a mezuzah on his doorpost -- although he used a commemorative nail from the Passion of the Christ. He's a typical American Reform Jew. And it's important for our country -- who often believe in ridiculous misnomers about Jews -- to be exposed to the non-fanatical side of our religion.
All that being said, Ushpizin is a pleasant way to spend two hours. And after reading my review, there's no way the hype will ruin it for you.
Ushpizin opens in Atlanta on Wednesday, November 23, at the Landmark Midtown Art theater. For showtimes, click here.
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| Wednesday, November 09, 2005 |
Suicide bombing, a practical affair
The War Within: 3 stars
Paradise Now: 4 stars (Playing at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema, showtimes)
Earlier this year, there was a film about a suicide bomber. It was called The War Within, and it wasn't half bad. It was only half good largely because it tried too hard to be fair, to tip-toe down the line of political sensitivity a bit too much. It depicted a Pakistani who, having endured a torturous (literally) incarceration, is smuggled into the United States so he might blow himself to smithereens at Grand Central Station.
It's certainly worth seeing, assuming you can find somewhere to see it. The bomber Hassan shows up at the New Jersey home of his friend Sayeed, who having no idea of Hassan's intentions welcomes him to stay. Tensions build as Hassan's views slip out and he begins to doubt his mission, wondering if he might be better off just living the happy life of an American family man -- or something like that.
As I said, it's worth viewing. But it wasn't great.
Paradise Now is better, also about suicide bombers, and set in Israel instead of the other capital of world Jewry. It's been bopping around the festival circuit, but it lands in Atlanta's Landmark Midtown Art Cinema, and even more than The War Within it's worth a viewing.
In this case, the pitfalls of political correctness are done away with. It's not only that the filmmakers (Israeli-born Palestinian director with a crew of Israelis, Palestinians, and Westerners) weren't making a film about Muslims in the United States, but a film about Palestinians in their native region. In this case, they sidestep grandiose political ambition by merely depicting two days in the life of a suicide bombing duo.
The result is something almost banal, and yet utterly fascinating. Rather than dramatize, director Hany Abu-Asad shows the practical side of suicide bombing, reducing the revolutionary figments of our imagination to what they truly are -- just people, almost bureaucratic in their planning and supporting of the bombing. It humanizes the Palestinian terrorists, yes. That is not what makes this film so disturbing, rather it is the dispassionate way it shows a reality bleaker than the dreams of those who stay just far enough from the fray to spew their rhetoric.
In the character of Suha, the film makes its most overt reach for political comment. A Palestinian, but born in France and raised in Morocco, she becomes the love interest of one of the bombers. She objects to the suicide terrorism of her people, practically and theologically. It's a wrinkle, but it doesn't detract from the overpowering focus of the film on the banal realities. Hannah Arendt would be proud.
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