Currently Browsing: Bechdel-Wallace
From October 25th through November 5th, Metro Chicago will be hosting the 12th Annual Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema at theaters in Chicago, Glenview and Skokie. On Wednesday, November 1st, nestled in the midst of this twelve day celebration of Israeli filmmaking, sits the 6th Annual Films By & About Women, showcasing the work of […]
My favorite Yiddish Expression is “Man Plans; God Laughs.” In this instance, the amazing life of Deborah Esther Lipstadt reached its ironic culmination the week of the first nationally televised debate between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald J. Trump. The debate was held on the evening of Monday September 26, so when Denial–the film about […]
A Tale of Love and Darkness is Natalie Portman’s adaptation of the memoir Amos Oz published in 2004. I consider this film a masterpiece… but you probably won’t hear many other film critics say that. This is no doubt the consequence of two major decisions Portman made as a first-time filmmaker. First, she decided to focus […]
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 […]
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 […]
First JLH Day at the 2016 New York Jewish Film Festival Stunning adaptation by David Bezmozgis of his 2001 short story Natasha. Bezmozgis is clearly obsessed with the story of Natasha–for good reason–and he made the excellent decision to both write and direct the adaptation himself. Natasha is the story of a teenager named “Mark […]
Full Title = Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict For all the books written about her since her death in 1979–and even despite the two books she wrote about herself–Peggy Guggenheim remains an elusive subject. Filmmaker Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s great contribution to PG’s legacy is twofold. First, she shows us the depth and breadth of the physical objects […]
Full Title = Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict Director Lisa Immordino Vreeland examines the life of the great Peggy Guggenheim, an American Jewish woman at the forefront of both the European and American modern art movements. Told in chronological order, the film documents the journey of a woman ahead of her time, willing to risk everything […]