This confusingly titled Israeli drama takes place in an Orthodox Jewish community. Unlike most films about such closed societies, including Ushpizin and Holy Rollers, set among Hasidic enclaves in Jerusalem and New York, respectively, this is not about encounters with outsiders or about those challenging tradition. Instead, it is about the normal challenges of life, but as experienced through a particular cultural dynamic.
Shira (Hadas Yaron), the character at the center of the drama, is an 18-year-old kindergarten teacher hoping to wed a young man she has seen but not yet met. However, upon the death of her sister in childbirth, she feels increasing pressure to instead marry her sister’s widower (Yiftach Klein), now a single father, though he is significantly older than she. Although this is not something that would likely happen in secular Israel, Shira’s internal conflict, between desire for self-determination and duty, is not unfamiliar.
The cultural context is one in which a high emphasis is placed on marriage; another character, an older woman, wears a head scarf to suggest widowhood, though she’s never wed, simply to avoid questions. Additionally, there is great weight placed on the rabbi as the center of the community, dispenser of charity, and giver of advice on everything from spiritual matters to ovens. Still, the long beards on the men aside, these characters seem like ordinary people.
IMDb link
viewed 6/19/13 at Ritz 5 and reviewed 6/19/13
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