Immigration, assimilation, food, the Holocaust, identity, music, Israel and the Palestinians, secularism vs. ultra-religiosity, comedy, social justice, intermarriage and unfettered, full-throated kvetching — that’s the Jewish experience in the 20th Century in a nutshell. Seven years into the new century, I don’t sense any dramatic changes in the recipe. Nor does the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, which has assembled a hefty, broad and far-reaching program that embraces all the above themes, along with a heaping helping of sex.
As in past years, the lineup of Israeli documentaries is extensive, satisfying the sizable number of Bay Area residents attuned to the ongoing conflict. The narrative films, from France, Mexico, Israel, Germany and the U.S., without exception explore what it means to be a Jew in an era of malleable borders, easy portability, chronic disposability and instant communication. This year’s wild card is a sidebar of boxing films, but resist the temptation to crack jokes about Jews turning the other cheek. It’s a New Testament reference.
As has become the accepted (by whom, you may rightly ask) custom at this blog, I’ll avoid the hard work of grouping the films through some clever, well-articulated process and simply list a whole bunch of highlights.
Political Junkies:
Hot House interviews a range of Palestinians in Israeli prisons in a low-key style that chips away at our preconceptions, humanizes its subjects (though not the female suicide bomber) and somehow leaves us both more hopeful and more pessimistic than we were when we walked in. Seeing it at the Castro (or at any of the other three venues) promises to be a quintessential Bay Area movie experience. I haven’t seen 9 Star Hotel, another Israeli doc which examines the plight of a band of Palestinian construction workers in Israel, but it comes highly recommended.
Chick Flick:
Gorgeous! is a frothy, frenetic Parisian farce with a serious case of sex on the brain. The action (pun intended) revolves around a beauty shop, its divorced owner and her Sephardic Jewish cousins and friends. Moviegoers seeking a bit more substance and even more drama are directed to Three Mothers, an Israeli saga of Egyptian-born sisters that spans five decades and two countries with style, songs and tears to spare.