Films explore Jewish themes

BAILA LAZARUS EDITOR

This year's Vancouver International Film Festival features two excellent first features by local Jewish directors that cover sensitive Jewish themes – Various Positions and Burial Society.

Various Positions, written and directed by Ori Kowarsky, delves into the family life of college student Josh, who is forced into making a choice between his family and a non-Jewish girl whom he loves. His father and mother, conservative in their Jewish lifestyle, try to impress upon him the need to maintain his Jewish lineage, while his little brother, who is Orthodox, won't even sit at the same table as the girlfriend.

In a subplot that brings father and son together in conspiracy, the father must dig up and move the body of a non-Jewish person that he feels is desecrating the Jewish cemetery.

Kowarsky, who is also a practising lawyer, did not set out to write a Jewish film but, instead, began playing with the notion of separation. Having read another script about a road trip movie several years ago, he found himself thinking about characters who break with the commonplace.

"I became obsessed with the idea of what it would take to break off your connections with your friends or family or lover or that kind of thing," he told the Bulletin after the film's media screening. "I kept working this idea over and over again until the evolution coalesced into the script of Various Positions."

The subject line of the non-Jewish body was a result of news events in Israel, said Kowarsky. A Russian soldier who was killed by a terrorist and who had served with distinction could not be buried in a cemetery with other soldiers because he wasn't Jewish.

"There seemed to be no right answer," Kowarsky said of that dilemma. "I was in the course of writing a draft of the movie so I decided to integrate those issues into the film.... To me, the most interesting think is about belonging or not belonging."

Kowarsky, whose family are members at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue, examines the notion of belonging throughout the entire movie. Josh, played with shy awkwardness by Tygh Runyan, needs to reflect on where he belongs in his own family picture. He doesn't embrace the idea of becoming a lawyer, as his father hopes, nor does he even seem to feel comfortable at family dinners. As well, having been swept away by love interest Cheryth (Carly Pope), he soon discovers that he holds less in common with her than he originally thought.

While Josh is not the most responsible or understanding character, he still garners more sympathy than the other male members of the story. In one scene, Josh invites Cheryth to a family dinner. The father and Orthodox son, thinking the girlfriend is lying about her background, trick her into revealing her non-Jewish upbringing. Hurt and embarrassed, she flees the house with Josh. Kowarsky does not see the actions of the father and son as evil, however. They are "inhospitable," he claims, avoiding a deeper moral judgment.

"Anything the viewer chooses to take from the movie, she or he is welcome to take," said Kowarsky. "Once you make the movie, the interpretation is just out there and I can't really control it."

Yet, as a writer he has control over the dialogue and, as a director, he has control over the actions of the characters. The writing and directing in this dinner scene make the family come across as morally bankrupt in their treatment of outsiders. No live-and-let-live principles in practice here.

The scene is just one of several that demonstrate how Kowarsky is not afraid to delve into the nitty gritty of human emotions.

The raw feelings, portrayed skilfully by the cast, combined with beautiful and unique cinematography, make this a tremendous achievement for a first feature. Judging by the reaction to the movie so far, his style hits home with many. Various Positions won the Prix de Montréal, best first fiction feature, at this year's Montreal World Film Festival.

Various Positions screens Wednesday, Oct. 9, 7 p.m., at the Ridge Theatre and Friday, Oct. 11, 12:30 p.m., at Pacific Cinémathèque.

Digging his own grave

For those looking for a lighter Jewish tone, Nicholas Racz's first feature, The Burial Society is a fun who-done-it that keeps the viewer guessing until the credits roll.

Sheldon Kasner (Rob LaBelle) quits his job as a loans officer at the Hebrew National Bank in order to work for a Chevra Kadisha (Burial Society) in a small town. His reasons are unclear until a story of stolen overseas funds, Jewish mafia and threats of death start to unfold. To keep his secret safe, he tells different people different versions of the story, making the viewer even more unsure as to where the truth lies.

The violence and deceit of the plot contrasts sharply with the beautiful portrayal of the Chevra Kadisha's activities in preparing bodies for burial, and the sanctity of the process in the Jewish religion.

Jan Rube (Witness), Allan Rich and Bill Meilen play the fatherly figures of the Chevra Kadisha who don't want to allow newcomers into their secretive brotherhood, but at the same time recognize the need for younger participants to carry on the tradition.

Burial Society offers excitement, intrigue, humor and moments that spur personal reflection, not to mention an inside look at part of the Jewish world that most people never see.

Burial Society has its world première Monday, Oct. 7, 7 p.m., at the Ridge Theatre, and screens again Wednesday, Oct. 9, 4 p.m., at the Granville 7.

– Baila Lazarus

A portrait of heroism

For most people, saving hundreds of children from almost certain death would be an important highlight of their existence. For Nicholas Winton, it was nothing special. He did it, then went on with his life.

Nicholas Winton: The Power of Good documents this understated man's heroism. From March 13 to Aug. 2, 1939, Winton, then a stockbroker in London, England, arranged for the safe transport of hundreds of mainly Czech Jewish children out of eastern Europe to Britain. Made aware of the situation facing Jews in eastern Europe by a friend working in Prague, Winton toured the refugee camps in Czechoslovakia in 1938. Unlike many others at the time, he realized the imminent danger and, with the help of his secretary and a few volunteers, started to write governments around the world for help relocating the young refugees. Only England and Sweden agreed. Winton and his team managed to save 669 children before the Second World War broke out, after which he joined the Royal Air Force and went on to other work and charitable activities.

Winton's story only came to be public knowledge in 1988, after his wife, while cleaning the attic, found a scrapbook documenting his extraordinary efforts. It was only then that the children he saved found out how they had been spared some of the horrors of the Holocaust. It was only then that Winton met "his children" who, today with their faimlies, number about 5,000 people.

Narrated by CBC journalist Joe Schlesinger, who himself was saved by Winton, Nicholas Winton: The Power of Good is a moving tribute to an amazing person. It screens Sunday, Oct. 6, 11:30 a.m., at the Granville 7 and Monday, Oct. 7, 9:30 p.m., at the Ridge.

– Cynthia Ramsay

Gaza Strip predictable

The most appropriate charactization one could offer of James Longley's film Gaza Strip is that it is an entirely predictable "documentary." The use of quotes around this word is intentional, as it is questionable whether the film is entirely unscripted and it is unclear whether the film fulfils its purpose as a documentary.

Gaza Strip was filmed over three months in the spring of 2001. The camera follows 13-year-old newsboy Mohammed Hejazi as he lives his life, from serene scenes with his friends contemplating life on a beach to violent interactions where he is throwing stones at Israeli tanks. The predictable nature of the film plays throughout with the expected shots of funerals, grieving relatives, melees with the sounds of tanks and gunfire, laypersons' opinions of Israelis and the peace process, not to mention the ubiquitous, long-held close-up shots of the sad eyes of children.

But the purpose of a documentary is to inform and educate and, while information about sporadic events in the Gaza Strip were rife in the movie, education about the situation was limited to a few lines of narration at the beginning of the film. For example, though we hear various residents provide their opinions of the peace process, there is not one person interviewed that has a true understanding of the complexity of the situation. And though it's interesting to be privy to the emotional responses of the subjects of the film, viewers will not learn anything about the historical facts of the situation.

In addition, given the fact that Mohammed is only 13 and he somehow speaks with the maturity and insight of a 30-year-old, there's ample reason to question the impromptu nature of his interview. Many of his words seem scripted.

Still, even for those who follow Middle East events closely, there are some damning scenes that might take viewers by surprise. One sequence in particular shows the effects of what is ostensibly nerve gas that has supposedly been dropped by the Israeli army into Khan Yunis. The hospital scenes that follow are disturbing and open up enough room for speculation about Israeli actions that even the most devout Israel supporter may feel their certitude weakening.

Gaza Strip screens at the Granville 7 on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 1, 11:30 a.m., and Monday, Oct. 7, at 9:45 p.m.

– Baila Lazarus

Anti-Israel documentary

Unconvincing and boring, Dead in the Water should have died on the cutting room floor. A documentary about Israel's destruction of the USS Liberty off the Sinai Coast on June 8, 1967, Dead in the Water traces the events that led up to the attack and the supposed cover-up that followed it. Despite the film narrator's repeated assertions of a conspiracy, the only thing that can be concluded from the "evidence" supplied in the movie is that the bombing was a tragic event – 34 sailors were killed.

In the days just prior to the outbreak of the Six Day War, the USS Liberty – a spy ship armed with high-tech communications equipment – was ordered for unspecified reasons to head to the Sinai Coast from its previous position just off the Ivory Coast. On June 5, 1967, Israel attacked Egypt and the Americans ordered their fleets to leave the area – a message not received by the USS Liberty, which remained in the war zone. Midway through the conflict, the Liberty was attacked by Israel.

Israel claims that a series of misidentifications and other errors led to what it calls an accident, and American officials also claim that the attack was unintentional. However, surviving crew members question this version of events, believing that Israel deliberately shot at and torpedoed the USS Liberty and that the U.S. government was also involved. The "proof" that there was a plot includes the crew members' suspicions, the testimony of an unidentified man said to be a former U.S. intelligence analyst and a handwritten note on a U.S. military document about sending an American submarine into Egytian waters.

Various conspiracies may have resulted in the attack on the USS Liberty, or it could have just been a dreadful accident. Dead in the Water doesn't come close to clearing up the doubt surrounding the incident. What is very clear, however, is producer/director Christopher Mitchell's views: In the words of the film's narrator, "Israel today still occupies the conquered Palestinian territories thanks to U.S. support. The war of six days has left a painful legacy of suspicion, suffering and sorrow."

Dead in the Water plays Sept. 27, 6:45 p.m., at the Granville 7; Saturday, Sept. 28, 7 p.m., at the Pacific Cinémathèque; and Tuesday, Oct. 1, 3 p.m., at the Granville 7.

– Cynthia Ramsay

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