Moses (Christian Bale) and Nun (Ben Kingsley) star in Exodus. (photo from exodusgodsandkings.com/#)
Moses, as best I recall from Hebrew school and The Ten Commandments, was a reluctant prophet with a speech impediment who was ultimately persuaded by the unspeakable, unceasing suffering of his people – and God’s fearsome support – to confront Pharaoh and lead the Hebrews out of slavery.
My, how (biblical) times have changed. The much-anticipated Hollywood epic Exodus: Gods and Kings reinvents the saga of a people’s miraculous liberation as one rugged individualist’s journey of self-discovery, identity and profound purpose.
The fundamental matter of spirituality, which might be defined in this context as the courage and power of faith, comes up in conversation a few times but not in ways that impact the movie-goer’s experience. Your post-film repartee is more likely to centre on the curious and disconcerting form in which God (or is it an angel acting as his emissary?) appears.
Exodus: Gods and Kings, which opened everywhere Dec. 12, is a sun-blistered chunk of glowering, male-centric mythmaking. Aside from its oddly anti-climactic ending – recognizing that it’s a tough call how many desert miles and years to continue the tale after the Red Sea – this is a well-paced, continuously engaging piece of mainstream entertainment with the requisite amount of impressive visual effects (in 3D). Just don’t go expecting to be awed, or to have a religious encounter.
Title cards inform us at the outset that the year is 1300 BCE and the Hebrews have been slaves in Egypt for four centuries. However, “God has not forgotten them.”
Omitting the standard baby, basket and bullrushes, director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Steven Zailian (Schindler’s List) introduce Moses (Christian Bale) as a general and Ramses II (Joel Edgerton) as his best friend since childhood and heir to Pharaoh’s throne.
Exodus immediately launches into a full-scale, screen-filling battle scene – a preemptive attack that might be construed as a comment on the Iraq War – in which the seed of Ramses II’s paranoia and jealousy of Moses is planted. This section is designed to excite male viewers but also to inoculate them against the ensuing hours of banter, revelation, wilderness wandering and domesticity before the warrior hero returns to Egypt to blow things up real good. (You think I’m kidding, but Exodus boasts fiery explosions like any other self-respecting, would-be action movie.)
Even if he was raised as a prince of Egypt, the portrayal of Moses as self-confident and militarily adept takes some getting used to. It does explain, however, his disbelief when the gutsy Jewish elder Nun (Ben Kingsley) informs him that he was a lowly Hebrew infant smuggled upriver toward the Pharaoh’s palace.
The biblical story is quite familiar to us, of course, even if creative licence is employed via verbal flashbacks and narrative compression. Consequently, Exodus is most intriguing from a Jewish perspective for the ways it alternately evokes and evades the dominant events in the modern Jewish world – the Holocaust and Israel (its founding, existence and current relationship vis-a-vis the Palestinians).
The 20th-century genocide of Jews is alluded to in myriad ways, from the burning of the corpses of slaves to the Egyptians lined up to insult the Hebrews as they leave. (The Exodus is presented as complying with Ramses II’s order to get out, so it is a deportation.)
An earlier sequence, in which Ramses’ soldiers knock down doors and brutalize Hebrew families in an effort to find (and kill) Moses, inevitably, recalls the Nazis.
When The Ten Commandments opened in 1956, the Holocaust was so recent, and raw, that it didn’t need to be referenced. The horrific genocide did inform the movie, however, in that the general public needed no help rooting unequivocally for the Hebrews’ freedom.
Another key factor was the new state of Israel’s status as a universal symbol of hope and rebirth. That image no longer holds sway, and the filmmakers acknowledge the contemporary perception that the oppressed have become oppressors.
While Moses and Joshua strategize how to cross the Red Sea, and Ramses’ chariots thunder in pursuit, they take a moment to ponder the Hebrews’ eventual return to Canaan. Now numbering 400,000, Moses points out, “We would be seen as invaders.”
This is an unexpected acknowledgement of power, one that Arab audiences (in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Egypt, where Exodus: Gods and Kings opens Dec. 25 or shortly thereafter) will welcome. Evangelical Christians in the United States, another large target market, will have the opposite response, presumably.
Jews, of course, will interpret and respond to the film from yet another perspective. The Torah does lend itself to various readings, after all. So does this robust movie, even if it is unlikely to inspire study groups.
Michael Foxis a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.
Would you like to go to the movies? Yes? That is exactly what about 80 people did on Nov. 25 at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture, thanks to the wonderful combined effort of Jewish Seniors Alliance and Vancouver Jewish Film Centre, which co-host a movie screening scheduled on the afternoon of the last Tuesday of every month.
Upon arriving, we were treated to a light buffet of bagels, sweets, fruit and beverages, then we headed to the large auditorium, where VJFC director Robert Albanese welcomed the audience and introduced the day’s film, The Outrageous Sophie Tucker.
After Gyda Chud, on behalf of JSA, made some announcements, including that the previously scheduled JSA Empowerment series talk Oy Vey, My Back! will be presented in March, Albanese spoke of the variety of films that the film centre will be presenting over the next few months. Then, Sophie Tucker “entered” our world.
Tucker was born Sonya Kalish to Ukrainian Jewish parents in 1886 as they fled from czarist Russia. She only became Sophie Tucker after she adopted her former husband’s name, Tuck, and added the “er.” That name became a password that could be used to gain entry to celebrities and even presidents.
In the film, authors and biographers Lloyd and Susan Ecker relate much of Tucker’s story.
When very young, she worked in her parents’ kosher restaurant, a job she did not enjoy. One day, her father asked her to distribute pamphlets at theatres as the actors left, since most of them were Jewish. He thought it would increase the number of diners.
While doing this task, Tucker heard the music from inside a theatre, she snuck in and what she saw changed her life forever, as well as the lives of her future audiences. She ran away to New York, leaving her family, but knowing where she belonged.
She tried vaudeville but, not being a classic beauty, she had difficulty being accepted “as is,” so she sang in “black face.” Eventually, her powerful voice began to be heard. When she forgot her makeup one day and sang as herself, the show was a success – she never performed in black face again.
Irving Berlin wrote music for her and she “stopped the show” when she sang. Tucker worked without a contract; her word or a handshake was sufficient.
Tucker was respected and she respected others, asking for their names, numbers and addresses upon meeting them and entering those contacts in a book, which eventually housed 10,000 names. She would write to these people if she were coming to their towns, asking them to come see her perform. She was the original Facebook – only it was the Tuckerbook.
Ted Shapiro, her accompanist for 46 years, had the unique talent of being able to interpret the mood that Tucker wished to portray.
In later years, mobsters took over the ownership of many nightclubs and Tucker befriended Al Capone. He enjoyed having her sing, as she brought people into his Chez Paris. He called her a “human cash register.”
In the years to come, Tucker decided to share what she knew and opened a school teaching young women how to be “Red Hot Mamas.”
She knew how to market herself: in the 1930s, she was the spokeswoman for soup; in the 1940s, she advertised blouses for the fuller mamas, saying she enjoyed being overweight – “Too much of a good thing is wonderful!” She prided herself on having creative and huge hairdos, calling herself the “Modern Marie Antoinette,” and always carried a large filmy handkerchief as she performed.
In 1929, the biggest entertainer was Al Jolson and he sang in the first talkie. That same year, Warner Bros. had Tucker debut in the movie Honky Tonk, where she sang “Some of These Days,” a song with which she is still identified. Judy Garland learned how to “sell a song” from Tucker.
During the war, Tucker was one of the performers to whom soldiers wrote and received answers. She was a pinup girl along with Betty Grable.
There was a young Jewish soldier who was obsessed with music and hauled around his records, vowing that he would play Tucker’s rendition of “My Yiddishe Mameh” in Berlin when he beat Hitler. Unfortunately, he died before he could accomplish this goal but his fellow soldiers fulfilled his vow, much to the anger of some German soldiers, as that song had been banned in Germany. The victors played it for eight hours through the streets of Berlin.
Tucker remained on top for 58 years, into the television era. Along the way, she befriended many, including Josephine Baker, who, because she was black, was having a hard time being allowed to perform – until Tucker invited her to sing with her.
Tucker’s talent and her voice were both immeasurable, but her true outstanding ability was in marketing herself when there wasn’t the media infrastructure there is now. She was indeed the last of the Red Hot Mamas, a glowing ember, memorable, still admired, still inspiring!
Expressing what we all felt, Chud thanked Albanese for enriching our lives with this movie, then we all went home with the echo of a song in our hearts, “Some of These Days.”
Binny Goldmanis a member of the Jewish Seniors Alliance of Greater Vancouver board.
A corrective of sorts to the Old Testament’s predominantly patriarchal view of seismic events and everyday tribal life, Lifetime’s emotion-tapping adaptation of The Red Tent fulfils one’s modest expectations for a primetime soap opera in period garb.
Anita Diamant’s best-selling saga of female self-actualization and familial tribulation, centred on Jacob’s daughter Dinah, is rendered here as an aspirational fable informed more by Harlequin Romance than hardscrabble reality. Viewed as harmless entertainment and a desert respite from winter, The Red Tent provides acceptable escapism, but if you’re hoping for an earthy, accurate sense of how people actually lived in those days, or a spiritual experience (on television?!), those prayers won’t be answered.
The Red Tent aired earlier this month on Lifetime. If you can get your hands on it, either as a DVD or in rebroadcast, the two-part miniseries comprises three hours of couch time (minus commercials).
The titular scarlet structure serves as a community centre and haven for Jacob’s four wives and their daughters. In this comfy, cozy enclave, the young Dinah acquires extraordinary self-confidence – presumably from seeing firsthand the essential role of women in the family. Their most cherished skill is midwifery, partially for its autonomy (the men assuredly want no part of assisting births) and because it’s closely linked to females’ unique function. As one woman puts it, “We are the lucky ones, for we alone are the ones who can give life.”
The experience of childbirth in biblical times was presumably more primitive than New Age-y, so you’ll be rolling your eyes at the miniseries’ insistence on hinting at suffering without bringing us down by actually showing it. (My biggest peeve about the show’s glamor quotient is that everyone has perfect teeth and nobody ages, despite the skin-wrecking trifecta of sun, wind and sand.)
The film’s greatest challenge, however, is plausibly reconciling a 21st-century feminist point of view (embodied by Dinah) with the societal limitations placed on women in those days. It’s jarringly anachronistic, for example, when Dinah shocks her closest sibling, Joseph, by announcing she’ll choose her own husband at such time as she determines. But it does provide the foundation for her character’s aggressive interfaith love affair with the king’s son, Shechem. This passage of the Bible has been interpreted in several ways, but The Red Tent presents their sexual relationship as mutually consensual and an expression of love.
That doesn’t soothe Jacob’s pride in the least when he’s informed that Dinah and Shechem have married, and things go south in a hurry. Whatever sins the menfolk proceed to commit, the second half of The Red Tent – spotlighting Dinah’s life in exile – takes pains to show that women are as capable of men at inflicting cruelty.
Part 2 of the miniseries embraces such reliably eye-watering themes as separation from, rejection by and reconciliation with one’s children. They may comprise the meat and potatoes of the plot, but the heart of Dinah’s journey involves accepting the family and tradition she was born into and the talent for midwifery that she inherited.
The Red Tent implicitly honors the continuum of women that preceded and followed Dinah, extending to the present day. At the very least, this female-oriented interpretation offers an exceedingly interesting counterpoint to Ridley Scott’s testosterone-fueled Exodus: Gods and Kings, which opens this weekend, and picks up – chronologically speaking – shortly after The Red Tent ends.
Michael Foxis a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.
Left to right, Boni Putera, Titi Juwariyah and Bambang “Ho” Mulyono are the charismatic musicians at the heart of Daniel Ziv’s (inset) documentary Jalanan. (photo from jalananmovie.com)
Daniel Ziv’s first feature-length documentary, the multiple-award-winning Jalanan (Streetside), tells the uplifting, engaging story of three musicians who are part of a bustling street scene in Jakarta: Boni Putera, Bambang “Ho” Mulyono and Titi Juwariyah. Instead of playing on street corners, these captivating and charismatic buskers board city buses, transforming ordinary commutes into musical, spiritual and political journeys through Indonesia’s capital, a mega city of 10 million.
Ziv, who was raised in Vancouver, spoke with the Independent by email after the Vancouver International Film Festival, where Jalanan had its North American première. An author and political commentator, Ziv has lived in Indonesia since 1999.
JI: How did you get started with filmmaking and how did you come to this project in particular?
DZ:Jalanan is my first film, and I never intended to be a filmmaker. Rather, the amazing story of these Jakarta street buskers, and how I felt that story, could illuminate so much about Indonesia as a society, and even globalization, sort of appeared in front of me and kept lingering there until I felt it needed to be told. Since the tale naturally contained so much music and energy and movement across this gritty urban space, I felt that film would be the right medium. So, I spent awhile getting to know the tools, and then learned through trial and error. Although filmmaking skills would have come in handy, I still believe that having a good story and good access are what really make a strong documentary. No degree of technical wizardry can replace those things.
JI: How were Boni, Ho and Titi chosen as the protagonists? Were there security concerns?
DZ: I knew that for the film to work, to really grab the attention and win the hearts of viewers, I needed strong lead characters – people with charm and charisma and agency, people with something to say about life. When I met Boni, Ho and Titi, I knew in each case that they would stand out as colorful individuals that viewers would be happy to spend two hours with in a theatre, or a few days with on the street, or even five years, as I did. They weren’t the archetypical victims that poor people are so often made out to be in social documentaries. They took control of their own fate, and they were fun to be with. And, of course, I looked for buskers with some musical talent and, more importantly, who composed their own songs and lyrics, which in turn reflected their condition. This added a whole other narrative device to the film that wouldn’t be there if it was just people talking into a camera.
In terms of safety, there actually weren’t really any issues. People assume since Jakarta is an enormous, chaotic, unruly, corrupt city, that it’s also somehow dangerous, but it’s not…. I spent five years shooting the film, totally exposed in some of the poorest parts of the city, carrying perhaps $10,000 worth of camera and sound equipment on me, yet I was never once harassed or mugged or even pickpocketed. I think if you’re at ease with your environment, the environment accepts you, but, of course, it helped that I’m fluent in Indonesian and that people knew I was with Boni, Ho and Titi. It provided me with a kind of street cred and belonging. I wasn’t some tourist leering in.
JI: What attracted you to Indonesia?
DZ: I didn’t plan any of this. I discovered Indonesia as a young backpacker in the early ’90s and was captivated by the country and its people, and then just kept going back. I did an MA in Southeast Asian studies and began a PhD in Indonesian politics, which is what moved me to Jakarta in 1999 for a year of field research. Then, I just got drawn into the dynamic changes that were happening to Indonesia at that time and into some irresistible job opportunities ranging from journalism and humanitarian aid work to book writing and filmmaking. And I got to work with the most amazing people, many of whom were the next generation of Indonesian artists and politicians and media personalities and social entrepreneurs. All of this has added up to a pretty fascinating career and life, but I also feel it’s been the result of deliberate choices: I didn’t opt for a safe, conventional path; I didn’t care about pedigree or official titles or big salaries. I only chose jobs that were truly meaningful.
JI: What were the challenges (rewards) of working on this project?
DZ: I guess the thing that is both the most challenging and rewarding is the intense experience of dreaming something up out of nothing, having the chutzpah and persistence to think you can create something that comes from inside you that wasn’t there before, and that it can actually find an audience and resonate with others…. [W]hen you make a film like this, that contains so much of your own experience and sensibility and sweat and tears, it’s really scary to wrap it up and then just watch the lights dim in a packed theatre and wonder if it will even work, if your vision and story will connect with people from a totally different culture and experience. And, when it does, it’s truly exhilarating.
JI: The response to the film has been positive. What’s that been like?
Jalanan is Daniel Ziv’s first film. (photo from jalananmovie.com)
DZ: Of course, it’s immensely gratifying. My greatest fear after all the hard years of work was that it would just go nowhere … but the opposite has happened, and the film’s political and social impact in Indonesia in particular has been incredible. Jalanan captured the imagination of the public and the media, and contributed to concrete policy changes at the highest level of government, which is something none of us dreamed of.
Boni, Ho and Titi are now mini-celebrities in Indonesia, so, of course, it’s been amazing for three marginalized individuals to be publicly acknowledged in that way and to become role models within their community.
JI: Boni, Titi and Ho have multiple challenges, but they seem to be living satisfying lives. Are there lessons for those of us who, by many accounts, have more privilege or opportunity?
DZ: Certainly. But I’ve always been averse to simplistic, clichéd responses like “If poor people aren’t complaining, who are we to be discontent with our lives?” I mean, of course it’s important to recognize that we have privileged lives, but I think anyone’s pain or challenges are independently valid and very real. Having money and comfort doesn’t immunize us from pain, and being dirt poor doesn’t deny them immense joy. This is why it was so important for me to not let Jalanan become an exercise in finger waving or audience guilt. In fact, what I think many viewers respond to most is not how different they are than Boni, Ho and Titi, but how much of ourselves we see in them, and them in us. I think poverty needs to be de-fetishized and dealt with at face value, and poor people need to be seen as our friends and equals, rather than as objects to be analyzed or pitied. I know they prefer it that way.
JI: Are you still in touch with Boni, Ho and Titi?
DZ: We are close friends, and in almost daily contact. They are doing well, and enjoying a whole slew of new opportunities opening up to them as a result of the exposure from the film, but … they are still members of Jakarta’s marginalized poor, they are vulnerable and face multiple challenges. This is why I’ve started up a fundraising campaign that aims to buy each of them a small, humble house in a simple Jakarta neighborhood, something that will put a roof over their heads for life (details at jalananmovie.com/housingfund).
JI: I read an article in which you said that the buskers “were really just the lens through which we could manage a far bigger, more complex view of the country today.” Can you expand on that? Why do you think it took an expat to make an Indonesian film that had such global appeal?
DZ: That’s a great question. My interest from the start was in trying to understand, and hopefully shedding light on, Indonesia. I don’t think there’d have been anything inherently fascinating or important in a film that merely focuses on street busking, so my agenda was to probe deeper and treat my protagonists as a kind of microcosm for the country at this really fascinating juncture in time.
I’m not convinced an Indonesian couldn’t have made this film and, strangely, quite a few reviewers in Jakarta remarked that Jalanan feels “like a totally Indonesian film” rather than a documentary shot by a foreigner…. But this is probably because I created the space for Boni, Ho and Titi to tell their own very Indonesian story in their own voices and perspectives, and left space for my very talented Indonesian editor, Ernest Hariyanto, to lend his local sensibility to the cut. My goal was to open a window on to Indonesia, not to interpret it in my own image.
JI: Were you raised in a Jewish environment and, if yes, did it affect your choice of profession or other aspects of your life/filmmaking?
DZ: It’s probably fair to say my choice of profession was despite my Vancouver Jewish environment, not because of it. I grew up surrounded by a community of lawyers and doctors and academics and business folks, and most of my childhood friends didn’t stray far from that. I was lucky to have parents who secretly admired the creative and adventurous tendencies my sisters and I harbored.
One of my sisters became a ceramic artist and urban heritage expert; my other sister is a professional chef and musician. Our parents never pushed us toward establishment careers. They taught us a love for travel and culture, and that it was more important to lead an interesting life than a safe one. They probably got more than they bargained for in my case, and lament the fact that I live halfway across the world, but I doubt they’d be any happier if I were a senior partner at a downtown law firm. And, I dare say, they seemed pretty proud when the lights came on at the end of our screening … at VIFF.
Basya Layeis a Vancouver freelance writer and former editor of the Jewish Independent.
Bron Studios has won multiple awards for its work. (bronstudios.com screenshot)
Aaron L. Gilbert had every reason to be smiling broadly at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. The Burnaby-based producer had three film screenings: Welcome to Me (starring Kristen Wiig and Tim Robbins); Kill Me Three Times (starring Simon Pegg) and Miss Julie (starring Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell).
“This is one of the top three most prestigious film festivals in the world, rivaling Cannes in terms of its importance to our industry,” Gilbert said. “Having three there was pretty exciting. It’s tough to get in, it’s an honor to be there and it’s a wonderful launching ground to create awareness of your film.”
As a result of the TIFF screenings, all three of Gilbert’s films are closing deals with American distributors. Welcome to Me (which also screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival to rave reviews) will be released in March, and the other two are also likely to be on the big screen in the United States and Canada over the next year, he said.
Aaron L. Gilbert (photo from bronstudios.com)
The 42-year-old from London, Ont., was studying at McMaster University when he had an opportunity to work in the music industry in 1993. That changed his life track, and Gilbert found himself moving between Vancouver and Los Angeles doing music management, managing artists and handling the international licensing of music. He credits his passion for the arts to his parents, Gloria and Joseph Gilbert.
“We’ve always been a family where the arts was important,” he reflected. “My parents introduced me and my siblings to theatre and music and gave us an opportunity to see and do a lot of things. Today, my brother and sister are also active in theatre and arts, and our love for it comes from the introduction our parents gave us as kids.”
Today, Gilbert is managing director of Bron Studios in Burnaby, which he co-founded with his wife Brenda in 2010, and where he wears many different hats. “Financially, I’m involved in putting the different pieces together for our films and with production partners, but I’m also very involved in all creative elements, such as finding a script, working on it and developing it, and selecting editors, directors of photography, talent agents, managers, casting directors and marketing people,” he explained.
Bron Studios specializes in live action and animation, and the tremendous talent pool in Vancouver’s animation industry makes this an excellent place to be, he said. “There’s a very mature film and TV industry here, and tremendous incentives for tax and government support for the animation industry in Vancouver, but it’s also about quality of life. I love the proximity to L.A. that Vancouver gives me and I often fly into L.A. for the day. This is as close to L.A. as I want to be!”
In the last few years, Gilbert has worked with Olivia Wilde, Will Ferrell, Helen Hunt, Jennifer Hudson and Julianne Moore, among many other Hollywood actors. “I’ve met such incredible, talented people, and to watch them perform just blows my mind,” he admitted. “I’m often astonished by how down-to-earth the actors are and, in many cases, we become friends. Will Ferrell, for example, is an incredible guy in addition to being crazy talented.”
Gilbert is actively working on several projects, one of them based on an original play about the inner workings of a Jewish family. Being Jewish certainly influences his decisions and the kinds of material he’s attracted to, he said. “My parents have always been so active in the Jewish community and that’s part of who I am and how I live my life, overall. I’m not in synagogue every Saturday, but I’m Jewish and culturally aware, and I know my roots. I’m definitely attracted to real-life stories about how Jews live in our existing world.”
Gilbert is also particularly attracted to films containing serious thematic material. “A lot of films I’ve done cover difficult subject matters in ways that can be accepted by wider audiences,” he explained. Welcome to Me, for example, is about a woman who is bipolar, while Decoding Annie Parker (2013) deals with breast cancer and heredity. “We want to approach difficult subject matters in a way that can be entertaining, but never preachy, to our audiences.”
Recently, he partnered with Niv Fichman of Rhombus Media on the psychological drama Into the Forest, from Canadian writer/director Patricia Rozema. And, in October, he was in Shreveport, La., working on I Saw the Light, a Hank Williams biopic, in partnership with Brett Ratner.
Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond, B.C. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net. This article was originally published on cjnews.com.
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) has launched Short Film, Large Subject: The Holocaust Film Competition. This is the organization’s first film contest, and it is open to entrants from around the world.
Recognizing the potential of movies to reach large numbers of people and to spark powerful discussions among audiences, the Claims Conference is putting out a call for talented, rising filmmakers to submit screenplays or treatments for short films about the Holocaust.
Short Film, Large Subject: The Holocaust Film Competition invites directors either currently enrolled in a graduate film program at an accredited university or who have successfully completed such a program no earlier than Jan. 1, 2012, to submit a screenplay or documentary treatment for a short film about the Holocaust (the systematic persecution and murder of Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators between 1933 and 1945) and/or the experiences of Jewish Holocaust victims. While the film can tell a fictional story, information relating to the Holocaust must be historically accurate.
The entry deadline is March 15, 2015. After being judged by a panel of Holocaust scholars and film industry professionals, selected entrants will proceed to the finalist round. The winner will receive a prize of $40,000 toward the production of a 20-minute short film about the Holocaust and/or survivors.
In the tradition of films such as Sophie’s Choice, Shoah, Schindler’s List and The Pianist, the Claims Conference, by launching this competition, aims to encourage a new generation of directors to tackle the Holocaust as a subject matter in their work and to use their creativity and skills to portray new perspectives and observations about a dark era in human history.
”We believe that this competition will engage up-and-coming filmmakers in the difficult but important topic of the Holocaust. Films about the Holocaust have great potential to educate and raise awareness at a time when fewer and fewer eyewitnesses are with us. By taking on this subject, filmmakers will not only expand their own horizons, but help preserve a piece of history that must never be forgotten,” said Julius Berman, Claims Conference president.
Separate from the competition, the Claims Conference distributes grants for selected projects and programs of Holocaust education, documentation and research. Among recent grantee films is the theatrical release of No Place on Earth. This work raises public awareness about the Holocaust and preserves the evidence of it; the funding of these projects will be even more critical when the eyewitnesses are gone. For more information, see claimscon.org/red.
Information about the short film competition, its rules and entry form are at filmcontest.claimscon.org.
In her film The German Doctor, Lucia Puenzo tries to capture Josef Mengele’s “very sociopathic, complex personality.” (photo from Vancouver Jewish Film Festival)
As a high school student in the 1990s, Lucia Puenzo was fascinated and mystified by an open secret: hundreds of Nazi war criminals found refuge in her native Argentina.
“I was intrigued that so many families knew what was going on because they had a German man on their block or somewhere in their neighborhood,” recalled the acclaimed novelist and filmmaker. “Maybe they didn’t know so much in the ’60s and ’70s but, by the ’80s or ’90s, everybody knew. How could they not open their mouths and say what happened? It had a lot of echoes of our military coup d’etat, where so many Argentine families didn’t speak out.”
In her 2011 novel Wakolda, Puenzo explored the devious machinations of a German doctor in the Patagonian town of Bariloche circa 1960 who befriends a young girl. The erstwhile physician injects her with growth hormones before turning his attention to her pregnant mother, distracting the suspicious father with a plan to mass-market his handmade dolls.
Puenzo adapted the novel for the screen, shifting the point of view from the doctor to the child. The German Doctor, which swept Argentina’s major film awards and was the country’s official submission for last year’s Oscar for best foreign language film, is a creepy, precisely crafted thriller made more unsettling by its restraint. It screens Nov. 12 in the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival.
At 37, Puenzo has already published five widely translated novels and directed three singular films, including XXY, her prize-winning tale of an intersex teenager. Smart and fearless, she is attracted to subjects that others find off-limits or taboo – like the Nazi presence in Argentina.
“For me, the big mystery has always been why this subject, that could be a hundred films and a hundred novels, has never been taken to film before,” she explained in a long-distance phone interview. “We have maybe a few excellent documentaries on the subject but not one fiction film, and maybe we have five or six novels, and that’s all speaking about the subject.”
The German Doctor did solid box office in Argentina, which Puenzo sees as confirmation of pent-up interest. The film has been released in dozens of countries, including several European nations.
The film succinctly illustrates how a cautious physician who adults would view with suspicion, let’s call him Josef Mengele, could win a child’s trust.
“In the camps, there were so many horrible testimonies of how kids would call him Uncle Mengele. He would have sweets to give to the children and then he would take them to his experiments,” Puenzo said.
The German Doctor captures that deviousness and single-mindedness, while persuasively depicting the polite veneer Mengele devised to mask his lunacy and deceive people.
“After the war, after the concentration camps, he disguised himself as this very civilized, seductive, enchanting man that lived for decades in three countries of Latin America without anybody suspecting who he was,” Puenzo said. “I think that’s how you have to portray this very sociopathic, complex personality who disguised himself. He was not the stereotype of the bad guy whom you could see coming.”
Puenzo comes across as earnest and serious but, befitting someone with a master’s degree in literature and critical theory, she recognizes the relationship between pop culture and popular perceptions of history.
“I remember films like The Boys of Brazil,” she said. “I loved it in a way, it’s such a strange film, but at the same time it’s a stereotype of Mengele. I think to honor these most horrific monsters, you really have to show them in all their complexity. They were much more dangerous than we think.”
The German Doctor is in Spanish and German with English subtitles; it is rated PG-13 for thematic material and brief nudity. For the full schedule of this year’s VJFF, which started Nov. 6, visit vjff.org.
Michael Fox is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.
Julie Cohen’s The Sturgeon Queens is informative and delightful.
From the fraught origins of the state of Israel to what a possible peaceful future for Israel might look like, this year’s Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, which runs Nov. 6-13 at Fifth Avenue Cinemas, should inspire even the most cynical. Documentary or narrative feature, there seems to be an underlying theme of hope. And who couldn’t use more of that. Here are reviews of a handful of films that the Jewish Independent was able to preview.
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Dove’s Cry (Israel) follows Hadeel, a 27-year-old Arab Israeli teacher, over the course of a school year as she teaches Arabic and Arab culture to a group of students at a Jewish Israeli primary school near Tel Aviv.
Dove’s Cry follows Hadeel, a 27-year-old Arab Israeli teacher, over the course of a school year.
The film begins with a school-wide celebration of Rosh Hashanah. Hadeel is cheerful, energetic and inspired. Her personality is electric and she connects easily with her students. The children vie for her to call on them in class, they are excited to be learning. Her Jewish co-workers seem to respect and admire her.
About a third of the way through the documentary though, a tearful Hadeel tries to process the racist outburst of one of her students, who calls her a “stinking Arab” after a disciplinary incident. Speaking to her family, Hadeel admits that this is the first time she’s experienced such overt racism in five years of teaching. Her shock and disappointment are palpable.
More significant, perhaps, are the casual, daily prejudices that Hadeel experiences, most often from her co-workers, the school’s administration and parents. And, however open the children, they know very little about Arabic, Islam, Christianity or Arab culture, and freely express their apprehension about Arabs, Arab neighborhoods and their fears around terrorism. Hadeel is patient, authoritative, good-humored and kind throughout. During a drill, a teacher asks Hadeel if she has a bomb shelter in her community; Hadeel reminds her that, of course, she does, that she is an Israeli, and faces the same physical threats.
There are stark reminders everywhere that Hadeel is creating a bubble of tolerance in her classroom and, perhaps, at the school, but not beyond that. “In the classroom, I teach one thing and, at home, they teach the opposite,” Hadeel laments. One of the central relationships in the film is with the principal, who reminds Hadeel of the limits of her program and often sides with the parents.
By the time Yom Hashoah, Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut arrive, Hadeel expresses how torn she is about her position in the school and, by extension, in Israeli society. “Suddenly, I feel like I don’t belong to the place where I was born,” she explains.
Ganit Ilouz’s documentary is a sobering look at the strictures and complexities faced by Israel’s minority citizens. It is a potent reminder at how much better Israelis would be served if all citizens were conversant in Hebrew and Arabic and knew some basic facts about each other’s culture and customs. It’s something Jewish Diaspora communities should consider, as well. Hadeel’s name means “dove’s cry,” a fitting name for a woman tireless and steadfast in her pursuit of a better Israel.
– BL
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At the centre of Hanna’s Journey (Germany/Israel) is Hanna, a smart, driven woman. We first meet her in a waiting room with several other candidates for a job. As one exits her interview, obviously disappointed, Hanna follows her into the bathroom to find out what type of employee the company is seeking. When she finds out that grades alone won’t be enough, that the company wants someone who’s also dug wells in Africa or is an “eco-freak,” she lets down her hair, removes her lipstick and earrings, and undoes the top button of her blouse. When one of the interviewers notes, “this resumé doesn’t wow me with its diversity,” Hanna lies to them, saying that she only just received her acceptance to go work in Israel with people who have mental disabilities. If she provides them with proof, she has a great chance at getting the job.
At the centre of Hanna’s Journey is Hanna, a smart, driven woman. Here she is seen with Itay – someone to love or hate?
Problem: Hanna’s mother, who runs a social-service nonprofit that sends young Germans to Israel, won’t fake the letter. Solution: Hanna actually goes to Israel, both to work at a village for those with mental disabilities, and also to spend time with a Holocaust survivor.
“In Hanna’s Journey, I’m attending the question [of the] impact the Holocaust has for Israelis and Germans of the third generation, how the shared past is affecting our lives up to today and inseparably connects us,” writes Julia von Heinz in her director’s statement. “The mixture of fascination and disgust which forms the German-Israeli relations, the neurotic, gets symbolized by my film’s complicated love story.”
In the film, Hanna leaves behind her businessman boyfriend Alex. Their relationship seems solid. Certainly no one in the nonprofit’s house where Hanna is billeted will threaten it, as Carsten is gay and Maja is not only unfriendly, but a full-on antisemite. However, Itay, the social worker at the village is another story. The antithesis of Alex, he is not so fond of Germans, at least at first.
During her time in Israel, Hanna discovers much about herself and her family, in particular, her mother, with whom she doesn’t get along. It turns out that the survivor who Hanna visits knew her mother.
Billed as a romantic comedy, Hanna’s Journey is more contemplative than funny and even the romance part is questionable. It’s really a drama, touching on many important topics and allowing various complexities to remain unresolved. The acting is strong, the script is compelling, and it’s a movie that should be taken seriously.
– CR
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Even if you’ve read Russ & Daughters: Reflections and Recipes from the House that Herring Built by Mark Russ Federman (click here for the review in the JI), Julie Cohen’s The Sturgeon Queens (United States) is informative and delightful. For whatever reason, the story of Russ & Daughters never fails to captivate.
Niki Russ Federman and Josh Russ Tupper are the fourth generation of the family to run Russ & Daughters. The family’s business story is told in The Sturgeon Queens.
Joel Russ came to New York from Germany in 1907. He joined his older sister and started working right away to contribute to the family income. He married Bella in 1908 and, in 1913, the first of their three daughters – Hattie, Anne and Ida – was born. In 1914, he opened his first store, on Orchard Street. In 1920, he moved it to Houston Street and there it has remained, joined in 2014 by a new family restaurant, Russ & Daughters Café, located on, appropriately enough, Orchard Street.
Cohen’s documentary came out during the store’s centennial year and it features interviews with the two surviving “sturgeon queens,” Hattie Russ Gold, then 100, and her sister Anne Russ Federman, then 92. Mark Russ Federman, who ran the store from the 1970s until 2008, and his daughter Niki Russ Federman and nephew Josh Russ Tupper, who now run the store, are interviewed, and longtime employee Herman Vargas is also featured.
Other interviewees include Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Morley Safer and Maggie Gyllenhaal, as well as chef Mario Batali, as an example of how the customer base has expanded beyond the Jewish community, and writer Calvin Trillin, who’s written stories inspired by Russ & Daughters and wrote the foreword to the book Russ & Daughters. Narration is provided by a table-full of longtime (from one since 1929 to one since 1976) customers, with other historical and family and business information provided by the family interviewees. The use of animation, music, archival photos and film clips all add to the quality of the documentary and the credits are especially cute: they indicate when the film’s major makers’ families each came to America from a wide range of places around the world.
– CR
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The Jewish Cardinal (France) by Ilan Duran Cohen is based on the true story of Jean-Marie Lustiger, born Aaron Lustiger, a Polish Jew who converted to Catholicism at age 14, during the Holocaust. When we meet him in 1979, he is a vicar in Paris who is being promoted to bishop of the city of Orléans – the location of his conversion and where he was hidden during the war.
The Jewish Cardinal by Ilan Duran Cohen is based on the true story of Jean-Marie Lustiger.
A temperamental and intense man, Lustiger causes a stir when he tells a reporter that he remains a Jew, he is Jewish and Christian, “like Jesus,” he says defiantly. He is “convinced that God has willed” his nomination. “I am a provocation that compels reflection on Christ,” he says, without a hint of irony.
The more we learn about Lustiger, played by a magnificent Laurent Lucas, the better we understand his fervor to reconcile his identities and make peace with his few remaining family members, including his father.
Lustiger has advocates in the Church, but also detractors. Though Pope John Paul II is a robust supporter and promotes Lustiger to archbishop of Paris and then, finally, to cardinal and trusted papal advisor, there remains a tension between the two men. (There are several wonderful scenes of Lustiger’s audiences with the Pope, who is deftly – at times, sinisterly – played by Aurélien Recoing.) Lustiger’s relations with the Jewish community are strained and we see Lustiger harassed by antisemites who accuse him of defiling the Church.
After a group of Polish Carmelite nuns establishes a convent at Auschwitz (not incidentally the site of Lustiger’s mother’s murder), he is asked by the Jewish community and the Pope to negotiate a solution. Many viewers above age 35 will remember the convent and the turmoil it caused for nearly a decade until it was removed in 1993. The film captures the politics and nuances of the incident with terrific results.
Throughout, we sense Lustiger’s confusion over how to balance on the edge of Jewish-Catholic relations, once he loses some of his hubris, that is. On a visit to Auschwitz, he can neither say the Lord’s Prayer nor Kaddish for his mother; when his father passes away, he’s distraught, unable to fulfil his promise to say Kaddish.
Lustiger died in 2007 of lung and bone cancer. Kaddish was recited at his funeral outside the entrance to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
– BL
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Israeli Shaul Cohen and Palestinian Nizar Ahmad cooperate in a joint business venture in Under the Same Sun.
For the dreamers of the world, there is Under the Same Sun (United States/Israel/Palestine), written by Yossi Aviram and directed by Sameh Zoabi. The film starts in a mockumentary style, with all hell breaking loose. The media has discovered that Israeli Shaul Cohen and Palestinian Nizar Ahmad are cooperating in a joint business venture to bring solar energy to West Bank villages, and all the talking heads have their opinions about it.
The film then jumps back a year to a meeting in Marseilles, where Shaul approaches Nizar about the project. From this point to near the end, it’s a regular movie, progressing linearly through time, from the project’s genesis, the difficult search for investors, the effects of the venture on their respective families. Skepticism, anger and obstacles must be overcome. We learn more about each man as each confronts their own prejudices and fears. And all looks lost until Nizar comes up with the idea of using a Facebook campaign to create a groundswell of public opinion that will force political leaders to make peace – and, hence, let their energy project proceed. If only social media were so powerful.
Under the Same Sun is crazily optimistic. With solid acting all round, good pacing (helped by Hilal Zaher’s score) and well-written dialogue, it is a thoroughly enjoyable way to conclude a film festival.
– CR
For showtimes and the full festival schedule, visit vjff.org.
Roberta Grossman (director), left, and Nancy Spielberg (producer) on the Duxford set of Above and Beyond. (photo from playmountproductions.com)
On Nov. 6, the 26th annual Vancouver Jewish Film Festival begins with the Canadian première of Above and Beyond, about a mainly American group of pilots, veterans of the Second World War, who fought for Israel in 1948. As part of Machal (foreign volunteers), “this ragtag band of brothers not only turned the tide of the war, preventing the possible annihilation of Israel at the very moment of its birth, they also laid the groundwork for the Israeli Air Force.”
Directed by Roberta Grossman, the 96-minute documentary was produced by Nancy Spielberg, who will be in Vancouver for the screening. Spielberg took the time to speak with the Independent via email in anticipation of her visit.
JI: What was it about the Machalniks’ experiences, in particular those of the air force pilots, that you found so compelling that you not only wanted to make a documentary but are following up Above and Beyond with a feature film version?
NS: First of all, we focused on pilots because, frankly, pilots are a lot sexier than infantry! There’s a romantic, tough, swagger, daring, live-on-the-edge, sweep-you-off-your-feet personality that felt bigger than life. I was so curious why these WWII pilots survived their tour of duty for the good ol’ US of A and then turned around and risked their lives for another country, and I was surprised that most of them were not at all Zionistic.
What drives a person to risk everything to save another person in need? Would I do that? Would you? Do we still do that as Americans? Is it part of that generation? Is it part of the American psyche? I was intrigued by their motivation and then I was swept off my feet by their charm and their chutzpah! The “adventures” that took place along the way and during their time in Israel make for great storytelling.
JI: What will a feature film be able to communicate that the documentary could not, or did not?
NS: I do hope that a feature film (dramatization) will communicate the same messages that we hope the doc does – how far does one go to help a brother in need? With a dramatization, we have more freedom to embellish the pilots’ stories and capers that we may have had to reduce in the doc or discard altogether. There are so many details and wild antics that could not be included in the doc but we’d love to explore in the dramatization.
JI: Near the end of Above and Beyond, you ask Coleman Goldstein whether he thought Israel would survive in tough times. What prompted the question and what was your reaction to his response, that, yes, it would survive, as “Israel’s an article of faith”? What is your answer to the question, and is it different now than it would have been when you asked it, given the most recent Israel-Hamas conflict (and the antisemitism it exposed) and as the U.S.-led fight against IS continues?
NS: We asked every pilot we interviewed whether he thought Israel had a fighting chance, or whether he thought he might not make it out alive. George Lichter said, “I thought we would lose….” We were surprised at Coleman’s answer because he was a very pragmatic, matter-of-fact gentleman, and he responded from his heart, as many of the pilots we interviewed did. Maybe they’ve become “softies” in their golden years, but there was a lot of emotion in our interviews.
My personal answer is that I am a spiritual person, and I agree with Coleman and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion who, in 1956, said, “In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.” I need to hold on to that thought and belief in spite of the latest Israel-Hamas war and the antisemitism that has, once again, reared its ugly head.
JI: How does Israel and Judaism or Jewish culture fit into your life, and what would you tell North American Jewish youth today who, if polling is any indication, aren’t as connected to the Jewish state or Jewish practice as previous generations?
NS: I grew up in Phoenix, Ariz., where our family was the only Jewish family in the neighborhood (who didn’t always take too kindly to us). We were three-times-a-year Jews – Pesach, Yom Kippur and Chanukah. Outside of that, we were gastronomical Jews with a love for Yiddish and Russian melodies.
When I was in fifth grade, I started to go to a Jewish day school, which prompted me to come home and tell my mom that we needed to start keeping kosher so that I could have school friends over for play dates. Slowly, we evolved into kosher and Sabbath observance. When I was 19, I decided to leave UCLA and spend time on a kibbutz in Israel with my sister. That was it! I fell head over heels. I found a home that I didn’t know I was even missing. From that time on, I’ve been involved in Israel, Judaism and Jewish culture. My children went to Jewish schools and Jewish camps. In fact, my 26-year-old, Jessy Katz, has been living in Israel for two years. When I say to her, “I miss you, come home!” She says, “I am home.”
One of my main motivations in making this film is to reach out to the North American Jewish youth who feel very disconnected in the hopes that this film will be a much-needed shot in the arm of Jewish pride. I’m hoping that they will find a connection and take a fresh look at Israel and how it plays an integral part in being a Jew.
Above and Beyond screens at Fifth Avenue Cinemas on Nov. 6, 7 p.m. For more information about the film, visit playmountproductions.com. For the full schedule and tickets for this year’s Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, which runs Nov. 6-13, visit vjff.org.
Kevin Kline and Maggie Smith in Israel Horovitz’s My Old Lady. (photo from Cohen Media Group)
Arobust 75, the award-winning playwright, theatre director and screenwriter Israel Horovitz isn’t in the market for a new career. Too bad, for his moving debut as a filmmaker, My Old Lady, is a rewarding, beautifully acted story of adults overcoming loneliness and bitterness.
“[The late, great Jewish director] Sidney Lumet once said to me about directing, ‘Get the best actors you can on the face of the earth and then get out of their way,’” Horovitz said. “And that was, in a sense, a directing style for me.”
Adapted by Horovitz from his stage play, My Old Lady begins with a rather unlikable New York Jew named Mathias Gold (Kevin Kline) primed to claim the Paris apartment left him by his perpetually despised and recently deceased father. Mathias thinks his luck has finally turned, and that he’s landed on Easy Street after a lifelong stretch of failed marriages and unpublished novels.
Alas, the apartment is a viager, which means the elderly Englishwoman (Maggie Smith) residing there with her unmarried daughter (the always-great Kristin Scott Thomas) retains tenancy until her death. Mathias’ actual inheritance, in the meantime, is the monthly payment contractually owed to the old lady. You don’t need to imagine his frustration and anger, for Mathias makes no effort to hide it.
On set with director Israel Horovitz (yellow jacket). (photo from Cohen Media Group)
My Old Lady, which screened at the Toronto International Film Festival last month and is in wide release this month, spills many poignant secrets that expose the characters’ long-concealed connection, and the scars from the past that they still bear. It makes for powerful drama, even though Horovitz excised a chunk of the original play dealing with the treatment of Jews during the Nazi occupation.
“I found that I had to boil the whole thing down into a kind of ‘guy walks into a bar’ story,” Horovitz said, “then write a film as though I had never written [the] stage play. In the first draft of the film, which was enormously too long, all of the talk about the Nazi occupation of Paris was in. As I boiled it down to what I thought the real theme of the film was, the real spine, it wasn’t that. It was about Mathias, his relationship with his father, and his ultimate forgiveness of his father. [Mathias] doesn’t renounce being Jewish, he doesn’t hide being Jewish. It’s just not what the movie’s about.”
Horovitz is the author of more than 70 produced plays, including such Jewish-themed works as Park Your Car in Harvard Yard and Lebensraum. He also penned the screenplay for Sunshine, István Szabó’s epic 1999 film about a Hungarian Jewish family spanning the 20th century.
“Being Jewish is part of my life, but it’s not my only subject,” Horovitz said.
The writer has garnered several shelves’ worth of awards, including two Obies, France’s Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and a lifetime achievement award from B’nai B’rith. The writer is as famous and respected in France as he is in the United States, which allows him a unique perspective on the increase in French antisemitism.
“I have some Jewish friends [in Paris], some of them in high places, who are grievously alarmed, and some Jewish friends who are kind of in denial,” Horovitz said. “And then I have me, in my own skin, and when I’m in Paris I’m, quite frankly, a very highly regarded playwright, so I may not get the same kind of experience or the same kind of antisemitism [as] some French Jew going to synagogue in a [small] town. You couldn’t have a more Jewish name than mine unless your name was Israel Jew, so there’s no question in anybody’s mind when they meet me that I’m Jewish. Do I personally experience a lot of antisemitism? Almost none; almost none that I see.”
However, Horovitz can’t say the same about growing up in Wakefield, Mass., a town about 12 miles north of Boston, in the 1940s and ’50s.
“Did I as a kid experience antisemitism? On a daily basis. The overriding sentiment in my town was, ‘Why did we go to war and lose all of these American boys? We just should have given Hitler his Jews.’ Now that wasn’t everybody, but it was some people, and they were quite vocal about it. I can’t, in my wildest imagination, think that all of France or all of Paris is antisemitic, but the people who go out in the street with their fists in the air and do Hitler salutes are certainly visible.”
For his next film project, Horovitz is working on a screenplay based on Park Your Car in Harvard Yard, his play about an old Jewish man (and retired high school teacher) and his younger housekeeper (and former student).
“I have had offers to direct other films,” Horovitz confided. “That doesn’t interest me. Really, I’m not trying to build a hot career. But I think I’ve got a couple more movies in me and I’d like to make a record of what I consider to be my best work onstage.”
Michael Foxis a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.
