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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Inaccurate but..., December 11, 2005
I grew up in modern orthodox judaism in England and studied at an ultraorthodox yeshiva in Jerusalem close to where the movie was set, have ultraorthodox relatives etc. but am now secular myself. A lot of the ritual aspects of the movie especially the scenes in the synagogue/yeshiva were inaccurate. I couldn't determine if they were Sephardi (Middle Eastern Jews) or Ashkenazi (European Jews) - some bizarre mix in the middle - Meah She'arim is a primarily Ashkenazi neighborhood. The wedding was the most bizarre... . Perhaps the producers were short of money to hire extras. The whole feel was very unrealistic as a result.
To an outsider a lot of the context wouldn't be clear as can be seen from some of the other commentaries here. The overall themes though if more contextualized aren't totally out of place at all, though I know it is an anti-Orthodox movie, but these are important issues. However, the end result is really messed up and detracts from getting the message across.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
It rings a false and unhappy note., March 15, 2009
I do not know any ultra-orthodox Jews (I'm not even Jewish, but Hindu) but this portrayal rings false to a neutral observer. It is easy for secular minded types, who are unacquainted with deeply pious or religious societies to end up believing that life within them is repressed, unhappy in tone, and generally unfulfilling in any authentic way.
Do Haredi not smile in their weddings? Are no families, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles or cousins who populate everyday life and bring laughter, anger, gossip and chatter and noise? Is life so solitary and non-communal in such a closed society? What's the big deal with religious rituals, anyway? We all have our own rituals, secular or otherwise, from saying "good morning" to strangers to hitting the gym during the lunch hour, or wearing a suit to work.
It seems the movie maker has an axe to grind. Starting from a liberal viewpoint, he ends up with the most slanted, intolerant portrait possible of a pious, ritualistic community, dehumanizing them and thus forgetting liberal humanism's most basic attitudes which are a) a tolerance for other people and their customs, and b) an understanding that people are simply people, no matter what rituals they may observe or whatever forms their societies may take.
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41 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Actors try, but director's simpleminded attack on Orthodox, May 8, 2002
The DVD interviews are extremely revealing. The actors (themselves secular Israelis) love the challenge of playing fundamentalist ultra-Orthodox Jews and manage to convey a true pathos for the characters and their lives. Their attempt to find beauty and integrity in the characters, and their sympathetic portrayals, are admirable but paradoxical, because the script is stacked against this attempt. The writer/director makes clear in his dvd interview: Orthodox Judaism and the Talmud are, according to him, clearly out to debase women. He chooses the most anti-woman quotations from the Talmud (certainly using a search engine) and composes a plot and shallow fundamentalists to mouthe the lines. In the interview, he claims all monotheistic religions are by nature anti-woman [unlike the Greeks, Romans, Assyrians, Egyptians,... ???] and that fundamentalists are people too shallow "to experience spirituality in the world without ritual" as he does. He admits making the film as an attack on the religious right in Israel. In sum, the actors' sensitive portrayals make the first half of the film truly interesting, but the second half is all contrived preachiness, ruining what could have been a balanced critique and portrayal of women in this culture.
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