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Seattle
Jewish Film Festival (2000)
The
first two documentaries screened, The
Color of Jewish and Menelik revealed
problems associated with Ethiopian Jews assimilating into modern life in
Tel-Aviv. The Color of Jewish, directed
and narrated by Pamela Love featured interviews with average Israelites voicing
their opinions about the authenticity of the Ethiopians’ claim to Judaism. A
few of the Israelites interviewed call the Ethiopians barbarians, a sentiment
that also appears in Delta Jews when
the Southern Jews claim that the Northeastern Jews are unclean troublemakers.
However, name-calling is the least of the Falashas' (Ethiopian Jews') concerns.
Issues revolving around adapting into Tel-Aviv’s cultural and economic
environment have proved to be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, the
Ethiopian elders (men) have lost their leadership roles, but the Ethiopian women
have been allowed to pursue careers outside of the home bringing them a new
sense of independence in the bustling market place of Tel-Aviv. The
Color of Jewish explores these issues through electrifying photographic
images and candid interviews with individuals directly influenced by changing
times. While
Menelik deals with similar issues,
Daniel Waschman’s documentary revolves around one young man, Gadi as he
searches for his cultural identity and roots. Gadi, a Falasha refugee migrated
to Tel-Aviv where he found a home in a subway station. Gadi proves to be a proud
man, dressing in fashionable clothing and at times, lying to the film director
by saying that he never slept in the subway. Far away from his mother and
village, his proud act does not hide Gadi’s loneliness. In the second half of
the film, Gadi returns to Ethiopia in search of his mother and where he finds
himself treated as an outsider. Always an outsider, Gadi’s identity problem
does not resolve itself and viewers might be left wondering what ever happen to
the young man. Gadi’s
story parallels with the legend of the black prince Menelik adding a beautiful
texture to similar to the Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s fable-like film
Gabbeh. Both poignant and informative,
viewers find themselves educated about the plight of Falasha refugees through
Gadi’s eyes. Simcha
Jacobovici’s Hollywoodism (Jews, Movies
and the American Dream) and Mike Dewitt’s Delta Jews explore Jews assimilating into the American mainstream
culture and turning their back on their ethnic origin. However, while Hollywoodism
entertained with sound bites from key performers in Hollywood’s Jewish
community and film clips from classic American films, Delta
Jews’ Jewish southern belles and leading men dimmed in comparison. Both
films reflect on cultural events in American history and viewers might actually
feel enlightened after seeing the films, but Delta
Jews would fit better on a PBS station than the big screen. Racism
reared its ugly head in Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher’s film, From
Swastikas to Jim Crow as well as in the Swedish film entitled Anti-Racism.
From Swastikas to Jim
Crow reveals the relationship between German Jewish professors and their
students at the black universities in the American South. While the film plays
with the irony that the oppressed, Jewish professors find themselves alongside
the white oppressors in the South the professors encouraged black students to
pursue careers never thought possible. The bond that formed between the various
professors featured in the film and their students elicits remarkable drama
often not found in dramatic feature films. Beyond the drama exist remarkable
individuals who participated in a little-known event in American history. Remarkable
people appear in the Swedish director Liv Weisberg’s Anti-Racism. Among those educating youth about racial diversity and
anti-racism are a former Neo-Nazi member, an immigrant woman from Uruguay and a
crew of Viking shipbuilders. Some of the interview subjects believed that
educating others about racial diversity will not end racism, but at least it’s
a good start and a provocative reminder that racial tensions still exists in the
world. Anyone
who watched the 1999 Oscar Awards will recall that tearful moment when the young
Japanese filmmaker Keiko Ibi received an Oscar for her short film, The
Personals. Equally memorable and charming are the elderly improvisational
actors that appear in Ms Ibi’s documentary. The sprite and witty performers
speak candidly about dating, sex and loneliness that they transformed into a
delightful comedy about romance in the golden years. Director Ibi created a gem
that paralleled the lives of the performers with rehearsals of their theatrical
performance, The Personals. Falling somewhere in between the TV show, The
Golden Girls and the Broadway musical, The
Chorus Line, viewers can witness a film worthy of its Oscar. From
the golden years to the bris ceremony, director David Bezmozgis explores
the lives of 3 mohels in Los Angeles that perform circumcisions on the
infants of wealthy Jewish and Moslem clients. As these poor infants are
subjected to a painful ceremony in front of, well, everyone that they will come
to know, the mohels remind us that they feel pride to participate in an
ancient ceremony. LA Mohels might be
entertaining to those familiar with the tradition, but the film emits a mushy
sentimentality that could turn off those seeking intellectual nourishment. And
it’s a bit painful to watch. The
double bill that included the films, Zyklon
Portrait and Children Of Chabannes
proved to be the most memorable in the festival. Both films dealt with the
annihilation of the Jewish populations in Europe during the Holocaust and acted
as a reminder of the destructive abilities of humans. Toronto-based filmmaker
Elida Schogt explored the history of and how Zyklon B gas was used to
exterminate Jews. Through a montage of underwater photography, family portraits
mixed with footage of a public shower and buzzing insects, Ms Schogt told the
story that her mother could never tell. Only 13 minutes long, Zyklon
Portrait portrays one of the most powerful moments in the history of cinema.
This film breaks hearts in ways never thought imaginable and by zeroing on one
component of the Holocaust, the filmmaker makes her point in an unforgettable,
yet strangely poetic fashion. Beginning
with German Jewish children refugees arriving at Felix Chevrier’s chateau in
Chabannes (southern France), Lisa Gossel and Dean Wetherell’s Children
Of Chabannes commemorates the 1996 reunion of the refugees and their
teachers. Through interviews with the Holocaust survivors, archival photographs,
Felix Chevrier’s journal entries and the children’s drawings from their stay
at the chateau, participants’ lives between 1939 and 1944 are chronicled. Although
Children Of Chabannes provides lively
interviews, (especially with a woman teacher who provided a hilarious
description of the rats in the dormitories) and gorgeous pastoral photography,
it is the humanity of the film that stands out. As noted in the film’s press
kit, ordinary people performed extraordinary deeds to save the Jewish children
from death because it was the right thing to do. And while this sentiment has
already been played out in other films about the Holocaust, this time the
viewers find themselves drawn into the story through comic moments and are left
with a compassionate image of human beings. However,
even though the interviewees appear to be charming and their stories
heartwarming, Children Of Chabannes
carries its own baggage of clichés. Yes, this story needs to be told and yes;
we can learn a lot from historical events, but it is a filmmaker’s job to tell
the story in a way that it hasn’t been told before. Any adult viewer of this
film will already be familiar with (although often not first hand), the
atrocities of World War II. The film would have been more interesting had they
focused on how the children were safely exported to safer countries rather than
the events that led up to their departure. By showing us one French village and
the villagers’ contribution to the safe deportation of 400 Jewish children (4
died in concentration camps), the filmmakers were at least off to a good start,
but the film lacks originality and it tends to be uneven. The goal of the festival, revolving around the promotion of cultural diversity via the movie screen, seemed to have been accomplished with SJFF programmers’ selection of documentaries and the features (not reviewed in this article). Hopefully, eyes were opened and minds enlighten at this year’s festival. Please be sure to read our reports from these other film festivals as well: |
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