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LATE MARRIAGE Send This Review to a Friend
A French-Israeli co-production written and directed by Dover Kosashvili and Israel's submission for the 2002 Oscar competition, "Late Marriage" provides an intimate view of rigid Russian-Jewish immigrant family attitudes that impinge on the life of a Tel Aviv mama's boy when he becomes involved with a divorcee who has a child. She is not a virgin from a substantial family, the specifications set by his parents as a suitable bride.
Zaza, the son (Lior Louis Ashkenazi), is 31, and he is in love and having sex with Judith (Ronit Elkabetz), but he has to keep it a secret, which is beginning to anger her. Meanwhile, he goes along with the endless number of meetings his family arranges for him to meet eligible young girls. The situation is basically funny as the mother, steeped in the tradition of her background in Georgia, indulges in superstition to help the quest along.
The film is stacked against the parents, as the mother is fat and unappealing, as is the other relative who joins in the battle against Judith when they learn the score. One roots for Zaza, who needs plenty of rooting for because he is such a wimp. But the family bonds are strong and for a son to go against his parents is a tall order. Yet this son seems particularly cowed. There are also issues to be resolved between him and his father.
The film, showcased at the 2002 New Directors/New Films series of MoMA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, is rich in atmosphere and the depiction of tradition that guides this particular family. There is also cruelty, albeit tempered with a comic edge, as the parents mobilize and carry out what amounts to a raid on the home of Judith. There is ugliness in the attitude toward her. What stand will Zaza take? What will be Judith's reaction? We have already observed both the tensions and the attraction between the lovers, the latter emphasized in the frank depiction of their hot sex.
How the situation is worked out is enlightening and rather sad. The result is surely one that can't please everybody in an audience. But "Late Marriage" is one of the better works to come out of the New Directors/New Films--and of Israel. A Magnolia Pictures release.
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