Currently Browsing: June 2016
Only after Yona is dead does her daughter Dorona begin to learn about the secrets of her lifetime. Israeli filmmaker Shemi Zarin’s new film (the fourth to be released in the USA) continues his brilliant run of domestic dramas “laden with happiness and tears.” HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (JLH: 4.5.5) Top Photo: Dorona, her two brothers, and her […]
An ascetic Haredi student living with his parents in Jerusalem devotes himself to ritual, until God Himself literally strikes him down in a freak accident. The Hebrew word “Tikkun” means improvement or rectification. Jewish Americans usually combine it to create “Tikkun Olam” (repair the word) as an injunction for social justice. But in this case, the filmmaker’s theme is […]
Director Benoît Jacquot’s new adaptation of Octave Mirbeau’s novel (co-written Hélène Zimmer) is likely the most faithful to date, but that doesn’t make it much fun to watch. Although Mirbeau’s fin de siècle concerns are highly applicable to today’s economic inequality and the global disarray in the wake of the Great Recession, Jacquot and Zimmer fail to achieve […]
Filmmaker Marcie Begleiter has turned artist Eva Hesse’s tragically short life into something luminous. For every year she was alive, Begleiter shows Hesse as an indefatigable woman with unforgettable incandescence. (JLH: 4/5) Review for JUF News by FF2 Managing Editor Jan Lisa Huttner On paper, artist Eva Hesse’s biography reads like a 20th century nightmare […]