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JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL (JANUARY, 2000) Send This Review to a Friend
Two short films are the best of those I had a chance to preview among the attractions of the ninth annual Jewish Film Festival (January 16-27, 2000), presented at the Walter Reade Theater under joint auspices of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Jewish Museum. One, "Different From the Others," dates to 1919. The other is contemporary.
A silent film ahead of its time, "Different From the Others" still resonates as a passionate attack on the discrimination against homosexuals under a punitive German law. Directed by Richard Oswald, the film was long thought lost, but was re-discovered and restored. Forty-two minutes long, it stars celebrated actor Conrad Veidt as a homosexual who is a renowned concert violinist and is blackmailed by a man he picks up at a homosexual ball. When he refuses further payments he is accused and prosecuted. The film is heavy-handed and suffers from the over-acting typical of so many silent films, but it is nevertheless strong when you think of the courage it took to make this early film statement.
Also recommended is "The Pleasures of Urban Decay," an 18-minute short directed by Samuel Ball and focusing on Ben Katchor, a New York artist and creator of the comic strip "Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer." Katchor not only is an effective humorist in his drawings filled with ethnic folklore and satirical observations. He is wryly amusing on camera as he explains his work and experiences while leading us through a tour of the city, stressing its history and architecture as well as the melting pot of its inhabitants. This is an unusual and droll little film.
"After the End of the World," directed by Ivan Nichev, is a Bulgarian-Greek production interesting for its story-line and subject matter but lacking finesse in the telling. An Israeli professor returns to his native Bulgaria, which he left after World War II, and is obsessed with his childhood memories. Soon he meets the woman, now unhappily married, who was his childhood friend and presumed to have gone to Paris but never wrote him as promised. Present events and flashbacks reveal how the dreams of a new society under Communism were trashed by a repressive government and discrimination against gypsies and Jews. There are haunting moments and colorful characters, but the film cries out for greater directorial talent, although the content goes a long way to make up for the shortcomings.
"Gloomy Sunday" would be completely ludicrous if it did not deal with such serious matters as the persecution of Hungary's Jews under the Nazis, the sending of Jews to the extermination camps and the Nazi corruption depicted in enabling some targeted victims to buy their way to safety. The basic situation involves the Jewish owner of a popular Budapest restaurant, the pretty assistant he is in love with and a handsome, moody young pianist who plays a song he has composed. The minute people hear a few bars they are so enthralled that they return again and again to savor the music. That's a heavy load for a song to carry, certainly for this supposedly magical but boring piece. The composition becomes popular worldwide but it has a drawback. It tends to drive people to suicide. Understandable.
A love triangle develops between the restaurant owner, the musician and the assistant, who gets the best of both worlds by sleeping alternately with the two men. They accept the situation as better than losing her. Complications arise when a young German patron is also smitten and later returns as a Nazi officer and occupier. Meanwhile, the music goes on and on and on. As matters get lethal, the German takes to accepting bribes for lives and has the power to determine the fate of the restaurant owner. In the post-war period, when he returns to his favorite haunt for a bit of nostalgia there is a final twist. If a screenplay could have been devised without the musical foolishness, the film, directed by Rolf Schubel, might have been better.
"Man is a Woman" arrives with the hype that it was popular in France and even outdid "Titanic" at the box office for a brief time. But like the ship, it sinks. A gay young French Jew is pressured by his mother and relatives to get married and a rich uncle offers to give him 10 million francs if he does. He meets a singer who takes Judaism seriously and performs at cultural events. She's an American, the daughter of an ultra-Orthodox family, and has left home to live freely in France. A friendship ensues and the man asks her to marry him without ever telling her he's gay, which I find so obnoxious as to cloud the rest of the story.
Director Jean-Jacques Zilbermann, who co-wrote the film with Gilles Taurand, tries to mine humor from the man's encounter with her religious family, including one son who also is secretly gay, the sexual problems between bride and groom and the fallout when the truth is finally revealed. The film is filled with assorted cliched characters and is too cute by far. This is supposed to be one of those stories in which human understanding conquers all, but it lost me with the cruelty of the deception without any indication, dramatic or comic, that there is something morally wrong with such a gambit.
Among festival films that I haven't seen are Claude Lansmann's "A Visitor from the Living," built around an interview with a Red Cross representative who visited Auschvitz and Teresienstadt; "Shylock," an examination of Shakespeare's controversial character with clips of various performances and "The Comedians, One Hundred Years of Yiddish Comedy Theater." For schedule and ticket information phone 212-875-5600
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