Product Details

• Actors: Roma Alexandrovitch, Aleksandr Yakovlev, Vladimir Mashkov, Mariya Lipkina, Hélène Lapiower
• Directors: Yolande Zauberman
• Writers: Yolande Zauberman
• Producers: Jean-Luc Ormières, René Cleitman
• Format: Black & White, Color, Letterboxed, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: Polish, Russian, Yiddish
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: New Yorker Video
• VHS Release Date: November 11, 1998
• Run Time: 105 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304429835
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #284,946 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Making love in Yiddish, July 26, 2001

By 

A voice (Cambridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ivan and Abraham [VHS] (VHS Tape)

An extraordinarily rare film-- a movie shot in the 1990s with a gorgeous cast of young people speaking Yiddish. To see Yiddish as a living language, to see unfurled in the glory of modern cinematography a world that might have been and might still be is a truly magical experience. The film itself is good, and the cinematography is excellent. There is one of the most tasteful and beautiful love scenes of recent memory. It is a story of life in an Eastern European shtetl. The movie follows several plots, the central one a friendship between two young boys-- Ivan and Abraham, one Jewish, one non-Jewish. This story is encircled by a series of romances between two beautiful young people (both speaking Yiddish!), and a middle-aged married couple (also very sweet). The movie has elements of fairy-tale like lyricism tempered by brutal reality (who could make a story about the shtetl without a pogrom?) Only one facet of the film is an elegy. Mostly it sparkles a prayer of remembrance, a piece of art that gives testament to human kindness and endurance.

1.0 out of 5 stars Seriously disappointing, October 24, 2010

By 

Bruce Birnberg (New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ivan and Abraham [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Poor character development and an inferior script combine to make this film a big disappointment. Quite boring. The writer/s have no idea how to build a story. Don't get nostolgic...Jewish characters are presented inaccurately and with distain [except for the Communist lover & other characters who reject their Jewish identity].

One of the worst films i've seen in a while.