Experience

Cinema, Israeli style

Israel turns 60 in May, and the anniversary will be celebrated in this country with acres of Op-Ed space devoted to sober analyses of how the Jewish state long ago lost its idealism. It’s true that the nation is no longer defined absolutely by Zionism, the secular nationalist movement that was endorsed worldwide (except by the Arab states) as details of the Holocaust emerged in the weeks and months after World War II. Likewise, Israel’s socialist values, embodied by a kibbutz system that enjoyed mythological status until the late ’70s, have given way to the greed, selfishness and corruption endemic to most capitalist societies, young or mature. But even as the country has become a typically affluent Western society, its cinema has retained its status as a crucial component of the national dialogue. Israeli films serve as both conscience and instigator, possibly because artists are able to exert influence in a country of just 7.3 million people. (Movies in this country are produced almost exclusively for entertainment and socialization, in case you hadn’t noticed.) But Israeli movies have been exposed to even bigger audiences in recent years, garnering praise, prizes and distribution deals on the international festival circuit. With the current and imminent release of “The Band’s Visit, “Beaufort” and “Jellyfish” in the U.S., on the heels of last year’s “Close to Home” and “The Bubble,” the wave has reached our shores.

topics: directors, independent film, jewish cinema, oscars

Film '07 -- Bests and more from the Bay Area's scene-makers

The critics have spoken, and the American West is winning in many year-end polls. But a quick survey of Bay Area programmers, curators, distributors, and filmmakers reveals a much richer picture of 2007’s best movie events, from avant-garde showcases to locally programmed extravaganzas. SF360.org offered some of the Bay Area’s leading voices a chance to weigh in on their film favorites and disappointments for the year, as well as their hopes for the next. We present an edited selection of their comments here.

topics: argentine cinema, bay area, castro theatre, critics year end polls, digital filmmaking, film festivals, filmmakers, gay lesbian cinema, jewish cinema, midnight movies, queer cinema, roxie

Jewish humor, after Woody

Beginning with “Bananas” in 1971, Woody Allen defined and dominated a specific kind of film comedy for the next three decades. His movies were populated by (and aimed at) attractive, college-educated urban singles with every conceivable advantage and no rational reason to be unhappy. The best of them, “Annie Hall,” “Manhattan” and “Hannah and Her Sisters,” worked on three levels: as thinking-person’s gagfests, as broad satires of a certain social strata and — thanks to the director’s neurotic lead performances and the unmistakable New York City locations — as benchmarks of post-Catskills, post-Lenny Bruce Jewish humor. But Allen’s hold on his fiefdom is now beyond tenuous.

It’s been a decade since his last great comedy of (bad) manners, “Deconstructing Harry.” He left his New York base to make three straight movies in London (the sibling crime drama “Cassandra’s Dream” opens around Thanksgiving, on the eve of his 72nd birthday) and he’s currently shooting in Spain. Although it’s too early to write Allen off, it’s also clear that he hasn’t connected with younger audiences in a long time. So let’s play a parlor game: Who’s the next Woody Allen?

Zach Braff, who’s admitted to channeling Woody in his “Scrubs” line readings, would love to inherit the throne. At this point, after the blink-and-you-missed-them releases of “The Last Kiss” and “The Ex” (aka “Fast Track”), I suspect the L.A.-based actor (and, let’s be fair, writer-director) would happily settle for being the next Billy Crystal (of “When Harry Met Sally”) or the next Dustin Hoffman (circa “The Graduate”). However, if Braff indeed stars in the rumored “Fletch” remake, he’ll be lucky to be the next Steve Guttenberg. (No disrespect intended to the Gooch.)

Jeffrey Blitz received an Oscar nomination for the spelling bee documentary “Spellbound,” which he parlayed into directing his original screenplay. “Rocket Science” is a droll and painful tale of a stuttering adolescent who goes out for the high school debate team at the behest of the comely captain. This isn’t precisely Allen territory, for Hal isn’t identified as Jewish and the story takes place in the New Jersey ‘burbs instead of an upscale urban center. But Hal has the loser’s persistence that defines many of the characters Woody’s played, and Blitz possesses a subtle, post-ironic sensibility that makes him a contender. “One of the hallmarks of a Jewish sense of humor,” he told me a couple of months ago, “is that you take people’s foibles and you hold them up to laugh at, but only to a certain point. You never cross a line so that you can’t connect to the heart of that person. It’s all done in sort of a loving spirit, even when there’s a lot of bite to it.”

I like that definition, although it doesn’t always fit Allen’s films. The same holds true for this snippet of wisdom from Michael Showalter, the sketch comic known for his work in the cult cable hits “The State” and “Stella.” “Jewish humor is always willing to be at the expense of the one making the joke,” he asserted two years ago, when he was promoting his deadpan postmodern indie feature, “The Baxter.” Showalter majored in semiotics at Brown but his main influence is vaudeville; he’s got a shot at Allen’s mantle if he can weave those two diverse disciplines into comedies that are accessible to a wider audience.

I would never have considered the French actress Julie Delpy for this list, even after her finely tuned work in “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset.” But her feature debut as a writer and director, “2 Days in Paris”(opening Aug. 24), tracks endearing but mismatched lovers through a scenic urban landscape in a bittersweet Allenesque romp. Adam Goldberg, as Delpy’s boyfriend, plays a jealous, insecure, bullying, hypochondriac, half-Jewish New Yorker who would be at home in any of two dozen Allen movies. Delpy displays a knack for moving between comedy and pathos, but the question is whether she can write solid, sophisticated screenplays worthy of her sharp-tongued characters.

Goldberg’s character, as imagined by Delpy’s script, could also be inspired by veteran director Lee Friedlander’s definition of Jewish humor. “I think it’s annoying [another character] to the point where it’s funny,” she remarked in a phone conversation about her new film, “Out at the Wedding.” Friedlander’s comic universe revolves around lesbian characters, and is as circumscribed and universal as the Upper East Side enclave that provided Allen with an endless supply of grist. Nonetheless, cable television, not the arthouse, seems most amenable to her work.

The most intriguing candidate to forge a career of intelligent, dialogue-driven films about the comic possibilities of modern relationships is Jennifer Westfeldt. She first came to the attention of moviegoers as the writer and titular character of “Kissing Jessica Stein,” the 2001 indie comedy about a single, straight New York Jew who gets romantically involved with another woman. Westfeldt also scripted and stars in “Ira and Abby” (slated to open Sept. 28), which mines a New York couple’s brief courtship and misguided marriage for laughs. (Ira’s Jewish, and as the movie begins he’s been booted by his shrink of 12 years.) Westfeldt’s favorite movie of all time is “Annie Hall,” but it’s difficult to transcend influences and develop one’s voice when you have one screenplay produced every five years. Between the uncertainty of independent filmmaking and Westfeldt’s current starring role in the sitcom “Notes From the Underbelly,” it’s anybody’s guess when (or if) she can concentrate on feature filmmaking.

This, of course, is the great advantage that Woody Allen has long enjoyed. He’s had the financing and the freedom to write and direct a movie every 12 to 18 months for the last 35 years. That’s a track record that no American moviemaker will match ever again, even in an age of digital cinema. So our parlor game has been a bit of a sham: There won’t be the next Woody Allen.

topics: actors, filmmakers, jewish cinema

In the ring with Jewish boxers at SFJFF

“The Thesaurus of the Yiddish Language contains 392 synonyms for the word ‘hit,’ including k’nack, patch, tzettle and zetz,“ says San Francisco Jewish Film Festival Program Director Nancy Fishman. “ We are showing five great films that showcase the moxie and smart fighting style of Jewish boxers, both old and new.” She notes that a lot of people don’t know that Jews have participated in boxing more than any other professional sport in the U.S. One of her favorite films, “My Son, the Hero,” by Edgar G. Ulmer, is, she says, an incredibly funny farce by one of America’s greatest immigrant directors and features fighter turned actor ‘Slapsie’ Maxie Rosenbloom. Fishman notes the audience gets a rare opportunity to see the film with Ulmer’s daughter, Arianne Ulmer Cipes in attendance at the screening on Sunday, July 22, at 9:45p.m. at the Castro. Also noted: There’s also a panel on Jewish boxers following the screening of “Orthodox Stance” on Sunday, July 22 at 7 p.m. at the Castro, and a silent classic, “His People,” with a live jazz score by Paul Shapiro on Saturday, July 21, at 7:30 p.m. at the Castro. What follows are Fishman’s and the JFF’s notes on her fave five films in the festival, which happen to be the five films in the “Jewish Boxers: Shtarkers and the Sweet Science” program.

1. (and 2.) “My Son, the Hero” (Edgar G. Ulmer, U.S., 1943)
A slapstick farce that showcases boxer “Slapsie” Maxie Rosenbloom’s meat-and-potatoes acting talent as well as the zany and enchanting comedic performances of Roscoe Karns and the great Patsy Kelly. Karns plays Big Time, a con man who pretends to be wealthy during his war hero son’s furlough. Preceded by “Max Baer’s Last Right Hook,” a boxing history film with a twist. (Sun/22, 9:45 p.m., Castro; Mon/30, 2 p.m., Aquarius, Wed/1, 2 p.m., Roda)

3. “Body and Soul” (Robert Rossen, United States, 1947) A classic, this film features Jewish boxer Charlie Davis (John Garfield in an Oscar-nominated performance), who has fought his way out of poverty to become middleweight champion. But the corrupt world of professional boxing and his own lust for money and fame have nearly destroyed everything he has worked for. In Abraham Polonsky’s riveting screenplay, Charlie must choose between redemption and self-destruction. (Mon/23, 1:30 p.m., Castro, Mon/30, 4:15 p.m., Roda)

4. “His People” (Edward Sloman, United States, 1925)
This one-time-only musical event with live jazz score is a silent Jewish boxing classic, accompanied by Paul Shapiro’s New York-based sextet. It’s a nostalgic and entertaining tale of life on the Lower East Side of New York, circa 1925. Two sons of poor immigrant parents take very different paths in their efforts to achieve the American dream. One becomes a lawyer and the other a professional boxer. Themes of love, loyalty, tradition and assimilation permeate. (Sat/21, 7:30 p.m., Castro)

5. “Orthodox Stance” (Jason Hutt, United States, 2007)
Dmitriy Salita, formerly of Odessa, Ukraine, is a 24-year-old fervently Orthodox Jew living in Brooklyn, who scrupulously follows the customs and traditions of his faith. He keeps kosher, studies Torah and prays every day. Dmitriy Salita is also an undefeated professional prizefighter managed by a Hasidic rabbi. Is that a contradiction? Hardly, as revealed in this intimate, fascinating journey inside the two worlds of a remarkable young American immigrant. Castro screening followed by a panel on Jewish boxers. (Sun/22, 7 p.m., Castro, Mon/30, 6:30 p.m., Roda, Wed/2, 8:30 p.m., Aquarius, Sat/4, 12:15 p.m., Rafael)

topics: castro theatre, jewish cinema

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

As recently as a decade ago, the various local “identity” film festivals provoked minimal interest and sold few tickets beyond their niche constituencies. Those days are long gone: A full 40 percent of the audience of the S.F. International Asian American Film Festival is now comprised of non-Asians. The S.F. Jewish Film Festival reports 25 to 30 percent of attendees aren’t Jewish. What’s going on? For one thing, savvy moviegoers outside the target demographic have learned to scout the niche fests’ programs for films that premiered to raves at Berlin or Cannes (too late, that is, to make it into the SF International Film Festival). The Jewish Film Festival specifically benefits from broad and urgent local interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which manifests itself as an insatiable appetite for documentaries from the region. The biggest factor, though, may be the number of interfaith and interracial relationships in the Bay Area. Looking for insights into your partner’s culture or family? Tag along with them to a festival flick. All of which is to say you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy the SF Jewish Film Festival.

With a nod to the numerous activists, agitators, and political junkies who make the Bay Area special, I start my SFJFF overview in what used to be called the Middle East. The impromptu theme of this year’s documentaries could be summarized as Revising Misperceptions. Take the program of “Film Fanatic” and “Yoel, Israel and the Pashkevils,” which takes us inside Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox community. It was trendy for a while to describe the inevitable civil war between secular and religious Israelis as a bigger threat to the country’s long-term survival than its external enemies. Some of the ultra-religious do not recognize the state of Israel, for they believe its existence violates the circumstances required for the coming of the Messiah. (I discovered this for myself during a trip to Israel in 1974, when religious Jews welcomed Richard Nixon’s visit with signs imploring the U.S. to make Israel the 51st state.)

The aforementioned double bill shows us a witty, rebellious side of the ultra-Orthodox we’ve never seen. “Film Fanatic” is an amusing yet poignant portrait of an ambitious filmmaker in a community where cinemas, TVs and DVD players are banned. Yehuda Grovais makes action films with a religious message for the direct-to-DVD market (his customers watch on their computers, a loophole I don’t pretend to understand), but he aspires to move beyond genre flicks to true cinema. “Yoel, Israel and the Pashkevils” spotlights two printers of “pashkevils,” polemical black-and-white broadsheets of “news,” arguments and accusations pasted up on walls. Israel and Yoel are both anti-Zionists, but to differing degrees. To spend time with Israel, an incorrigible joke-maker who irritates many of his fellow Haredi (religious Jews) by appearing on the evil medium of television, is to realize that the stereotype is a myth.

The same could be said of “Hot House,” Shimon Dotan’s valuable survey of Palestinians serving sentences in Israeli prisons. From thoughtful future leaders to sociopath suicide bombers, the prisoners command our attention. Like a lot of docs about the conflict, “Hot House” delivers several blows to the viewer’s biases and sympathies — regardless of which side you fall on. I also recommend, sight unseen, Ido Haar’s “9 Star Hotel,” which gets up-close and personal with a group of Palestinian laborers trying to make a living in Israel.

In recent years, Israeli narrative filmmakers have shifted their focus from war and politics to the “normal” dysfunction of everyday life. “The Bubble,” the seductive new film from Eytan Fox (“Walk on Water”), weaves the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a gay and straight, 20-something pop culture story set in the boho-yuppie part of Tel Aviv. (The movie plays just once, in Berkeley, then returns for a theatrical run in September; it likewise played once in June at the SF International LGBT Film Festival as the Centerpiece film.) The opening night film, “Sweet Mud,” is a not-so-nostalgic look back at a troubled year in an adolescent kibbutznik’s life. Dror Shaul’s pointed fable can be seen as a metaphor for Israel’s loss of idealism and innocence. Well, either that or he’s working out a long-held grudge. In the delectably glossy and borderline melodramatic “Three Mothers,” Dina Zvi-Riklis follows Sephardic sisters from their childhood in Egypt through their adulthood in Israel. An intimate family epic with a great soundtrack (one of the sisters is a singer), the film offers a Hollywood-style blend of luscious production values and thick emotions.

Women are also the primary audience for “Gorgeous,” a glib French comedy whose ostensible subject is the female quest for sex, love and fulfillment. Shallow, frantic and unmemorable, although well-acted, it’s the closest thing to pure escapism in the entire festival. “Bad Faith,” another superficial French feature, starts out as a portrait of a blissful love affair between two assimilated Parisians, a Muslim man and a Jewish woman. But when Clara gets pregnant, their relationship implodes. Actor-director-co-writer Roschdy Zem misses every opportunity to expose viewers to the fine points of either Islam or Judaism, opting for a broad, accessible and ultimately farcical approach. Another problem is that the actors are too old for the roles; we could accept “Bad Faith” as an interfaith “Knocked Up,” but not when the main characters are in their late 20s.

For top-of-the-line entertainment, the sublime music doc “Between Two Notes” beats all challengers. Filmmaker Florence Strauss finds the most marvelous musicians in Beirut, Damascus, Cairo and Tel Aviv who sing and play variations of Arabic music — call them Mesopotamian blues brothers (with a sister or two). There’s a lot of deep talk about half-notes and geography and sociology that’s perfectly interesting but didn’t stick with me, although the profoundly soulful music sure did.

While every musician in “Between Two Notes” has seamlessly synthesized his or her identity, history and artistic goals, Yasmin Levy is torn between the past and the future. The impassioned Israeli singer and subject of “Ladino — 500 Years Young” has been successful reviving the Ladino songs that her father performed decades ago, but her audience is aging and disappearing. (Ladino is the language spoken by the descendants of the Spanish or Sephardic Jews forced to convert or flee during the long years of the Inquisition.) At the same time, Levy wants to infuse the Ladino melodies with the elements of flamenco that she loves. Is she following her muse, or abandoning her responsibility as the last standard-bearer of a dying culture?

Identity, of course, is the defining characteristic of the Jewish Film Festival. (Guilt, that old stand-by, is so ten years ago.) South America is strewn with pockets of Ashkenazi (or Eastern European) Jews, the children of 19th and 20th Century immigrants whose families have practiced their religion for centuries. But what of the descendants of the exiled Spanish Jews, who concealed their identities and observed their rituals in secret? They can’t trace their Jewish ancestry, and aren’t recognized by the Jewish establishment. The wrenching documentary “The Longing: The Forgotten Jews of South America” follows a handful of these men and women as they go about converting to Judaism.

Jewish identity is by no means central, however, to the strongest film in the festival outside of “Hot House.” When 29-year-old Shlomo Shir was diagnosed with cancer, he kept his camcorder in hand through the long, painful ordeal. “Mr. Cortisone, Happy Days” which takes its title from the painkiller that pushes the Israeli filmmaker into stretches of a neither-here-nor-there limbo, is one of the least narcissistic first-person docs you’ll ever see. “Sicko” it’s not, although Shir has an excellent sense of humor, for this isn’t an exposé of medical care so much as a portrait of a psyche under enormous pressure. It’s a universal subject, explored and expressed through a mix of confession, poetry, rage and remarkable artistry. “Mr. Cortisone, Happy Days” is a must-see for devotees — Jewish or otherwise — of hard-hitting filmmaking.

The S.F. Jewish Film Festival runs July19-26 at the Castro in San Francisco, July 28-Aug. 4 at the Roda in Berkeley, July 28-Aug. 2 at the Aquarius in Palo Alto and Aug. 4-6 at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael.

topics: film festivals, jewish cinema

Review: "Lover Other"

“Under the mask is another mask, I will never finish lifting all these faces,” wrote French Surrealist artist, lesbian, author and political agitator Claude Cahun. Masks appear frequently in the startling portraits she and her half-sister and lover Marcel Moore took of themselves and each other dressed in a variety of personas, costumes and genders.

Veteran lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer (“Nitrate Kisses”) knows better than to try and look behind the mask to find some “real” Cahun. (Editor’s note: The film plays Wed/27 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, courtesy SF Jewish Film Festival and SF Cinematheque.)

As the academic among the polyphony of narrating voices in Hammer’s Cahun documentary “Lover Other” states, as if reading a cue card, “Cahun’s work suggests that identity can only be performed; it cannot be revealed.” So Hammer gives us a play of images and quotations (the script incorporates Cahun’s writings, while Broadway actress Kathleen Chalfant and performance artist Marty Pottenger appear as the two women), that patch together Cahun and Moore’s life during wartime on their adoptive Isle of Jersey — focusing, in particular, on their acts of creative resistance to the occupying German forces that almost cost them their lives.

Hammer’s occasional editing missteps make the film, at times, feel less like a collage and more like a PowerPoint presentation. Indeed, Cahun’s work trembles with an anxiety and instability that’s almost too punk for the film’s laconic pace. There are some unexpectedly affecting moments — mostly in the vague yet admiring recollections of former village neighbors, who recall their childhood encounters with the “off beat” French sisters they hardly knew, but were no doubt captivated by and saw as almost otherwordly heroines. Undoubtedly, Hammer sees them much in the same way. The footage she splices between the end credits of one of Cahun’s self-portraits being bid upon at an auction house, however, suggests somewhat woefully that Cahun’s importance as an aesthetic, sexual, and political radical will be eclipsed by the monetary value ascribed to her by an ever-rapacious art market.

topics: filmmakers, gay lesbian cinema, jewish cinema, reviews, yerba buena center for the arts