Customer Reviews

Sallah (Region 2)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Among the top 50 Israeli films, this one is likely to appear on everyone's list. Topol is absolutely hilarious as an incorrigible layabout who is always looking for a (creative) way to avoid work. For example, many know that donors to Israel are promised a grove or tree in their name. Rather than plant new trees, Topol goes about changing the names assigned to the trees already planted...making sure he gets advance notice of the donors about to visit "their grove." From a serious standpoint, the film does exhibit some of the real problems that immigrants face in adjusting to life in Israel including the poor quality of some of the accomodations. For fans of Topol, check out some of his other films such as Left Luggage or Galileo.

Chaim Topol, who stars as the ertswhile Sallah Shabati, really brings this movie to life.

And as he does so, he helps tell the humourous side of the story of the founding of the State of Israel, from the perspective of one of its less esteemed emigrees.

He religously avoids work. He does for the local kibbutz election what the Marx brothers did for opera. He attempts to secure a payment from his daughter's romantic suitor.

And he even keeps changing the identification placards near a single Israeli tree so that its various donars can all visit (albeit, of course, not at the same time).

Of course, any movie starring Topol invites the inevitable discussion his more noted (and later) role as Tevye the Milk Man in the super famous Fidler on the Roof. And yes, much like he would do later, he plays beyond his age.

Amazingly, when the movie was made Topol was only 27 years old, something you could just as easily miss here as you could miss it in Fidler.

And yes, much like his later portrayal, Tevye is the quintessential family man, struggling to provide for his large brood, though Shabati obviously lacks Tevye's more obvious work ethic.

However, this is a movie that rightly deserves attention for what it was. Amazingly, it was made back when there was only one movie camera in the entire State of Israel. Despite that fact (and other obvious limited resources) this movie went on to score a foreign film Academy Award nomination in 1965.

So don't watch it for Tevye. Watch it for Sallah and enjoy.

For those who don't know a boureka is a puff of filo dough wrapped around a filling of spinach, sauteed mushrooms, potato and sometimes other vegetables. It's intended more as an appetizer rather than a full meal. Applied to film you'd say it was the equivalent of a B movie, usually featuring family life and a love story. For another example of the genre see my review of Fatma

Made on a shoestring and written by Israeli humourist Ephraim Kishon (The Funniest Man in the World: The Wild and Crazy Humor of Ephraim Kishon) it follows the travails of the lazy but sympathetic Topol as a new but illiterate Israeli oleh from a non-specific Arab country. Sallah's quest is to leave the immigration transit camp and the leaky wooden shack he has been given and to move his family into the brand new housing project, but the cost is 1000 lira and Sallah is allergic to work. A variety of schemes ensue ranging from planting trees (but not working), taking bribes from election candidates, negotiating ever higher prices to move a large cabinet, kidnapping the wrong dog to replace a lost poodle and marrying off his daughter and trying to obtain a dowry from the nearby kibbutz.

One can very much see the makings of Tevya in the portrayal of Sallah. Topol plays a middle aged patriarch with a weak eye, slightly bent with a shuffling walk, yet he would have only been 29 or 30 when he played the role. Watch as well the role of Sallah's friend and backgammon partner Goldstein by Nathan Meizler which is priceless.

Most of the dialog is in Hebrew with some incidental English from characters playing Americans. The movie comes with English, Russian and French subtitles. I was a little concerned that the slow pace of the film would not hold up in 2009 but my daughter loved it and it was every bit as sweet and enjoyable as I remembered from watching it in the repertory theatre with my mother as a child. We live in a wonderful time wherein we can reclaim our childhood memories.