Love, fear and death

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

Love, forgiveness and humor permeate Nora's Will (Cinco días sin Nora), while fear, blame and irony prevail in Defamation. Both will screen at this year's Vancouver International Film Festival.

Director Mariana Chenillo based Nora's Will on her grandparents' story. Nora (Silvia Mariscal) suffers from depression and has tried to kill herself many times. She finally succeeds, at age 63, in overdosing right before Passover. She has planned everything so that her family must come together for the funeral and, of course, the holiday. She makes sure that her former husband, Jose (Fernando Lujan) – who lives across the street – finds her and, once Jose discovers the body and alerts his son, the family drama begins.

A complete atheist who's not afraid to share his opinions – or impose pork-laden pizza to any Jew that enters his home on Pesach – Jose manages to insult the main rabbi in town, which results in much trouble finding Nora a burial plot because, after all, she committed suicide. Religious issues become more confused as Fabiana, Nora's longtime helper, demonstrates her Christian faith by, for example, placing a cross on Nora's neck, which, of course, has to be removed before the rabbis arrive for the body.

Amid the mayhem, Jose finds an old photograph under Nora's bed that starts him questioning their entire relationship. The flashbacks of their life together are the most touching in the film, which is slow but not boring. The soundtrack and cinematography add to the overall beauty of the film, which leaves viewers optimistic about humanity and our capacity to love.

On the flip side is Defamation, a documentary by controversial Israeli director Yoav Shamir, which, according to its promotional material, "walks along the boundary between anti-Zionism, rejecting the notion of a Jewish state, and anti-Semitism, rejecting Jews."

Shamir's previous films include Checkpoint – which, according to the director's statement on the film's website, got Shamir labeled by one critic as "'the Israeli Mel Gibson,' not because of my good looks, but because the views I had expressed, critical of Israel's policies toward the Palestinians, indicated that I was anti-Semitic."

This comment supposedly set Shamir making Defamation, which follows young Israeli high school students on a trip to Poland with March of the Living; gives viewers a glimpse into the motivations and work of Abraham Foxman, head of the U.S. Anti-Defamation League; and highlights some of the main critics of Foxman and other Zionists, including professors Norman Finkelstein and John Mearsheimer.

Shamir's documentary is a little too cutesy in how the material is presented, but the worse offence is that he makes almost all of the interviewees seem crazy. While it raises some interesting issues, they are overshadowed by the filmmaker's biases.

For more information about this year's film festival, which runs Oct. 1-16, visit viff.org.

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