Brief thoughts on the magnificent Irmi (2020)NYJFF 2021

 My God She Could Laugh!

This is the film we need right now. A portrait of Irmi Selver who fled the Nazis only to have her family die in a shipwreck, and then chose to go on full steam ahead. It is a film about going on no matter how bad things get and finding friends and family along the way

This is one of the great films I've seen in 2021. Yea the year is young but IRMI has already taken up residence in my heart. I adore the sense of life that bleeds off the screen, of going her sense of going on despite some truly tragic turns. I love that when the film ends we not only agree with her assessment that she had an interesting life, but that we are left feeling happy having sent time with her.

I love this movie more than I can say.

Highly recommended it is a must see when it closes out the New York Jewish Film Festival 

Love And Stuff (2020) NYJFF 2021

This is a repost of my review which ran at last years DOC NYC.

 I am not going to do a real review of Judith Helfand's LOVE AND STUFF because I am simply not in a place to review it. The film is Helfand's story about her mother, her mother's death and becoming a mom at the age of 50. It is a reassessing of her life in the midst of several sea changes in said life.

The reason I am not going to do a review is that a couple months back I lost my dad. Like Helfand and her mom, my relationship with my dad was very close. Seeing LOVE AND STUFF kicked up a great deal of stuff that I really wasn't ready to deal with. That isn't a bad thing, rather it skewed my feelings for the film to such a great degree that I don't know which way is up. I can not be even remotely objective...

...to that end I will say that despite the emotional tsunami it hit me with I do know this is a good film (I wouldn't have been blindsided if it wasn't)  and it is recommended if the subject matter interests you.

On Broadway (2019) NYJFF 2021

There is no question that ON BROADWAY is a great film. It is a beautifully told history of Broadway theater over the last 50 years. It is both direct and to the point and it contains some absolutely wonderful stories that make it feel like you are sitting in the room with all of the greats who are interviewed.

After a brief description of the classic days of Broadway when it was the source of much of popular music and created the dreams of stardom for the next wave of stars, the film shifts gears and talks about the decline of Broadway in the late 60's and early 70's when attendance was near zero. It then follows the rise out of darkness as Off Broadway began to send massive hit to the stages, how the London theater began to invade and theaters came back to life. The whole tale is hung around following the play THE NAP come to life on stage at the Manhattan Theater Club.

How in love with the greatness you are going to be determined by how much affinity you have for the history of the Great White Way. I have a great affinity for it and have spent all the money that should be in my retirement savings seeing shows over the last two plus decades so I loved it. I was enthralled by both the history and the the stories of the stars (Helen Mirren feeling kinship for the con men and sex workers of the bad old days is delightful) which opened up and made real the mythic place called Broadway.

And to me Broadway was mythic. My family couldn't really afford to just go to Broadway, so it was left to school trips (My first show was Pippin and we arrived late, hustling in as the cast sang Magic To Do, thus dooming me for all time as I entered a dream I never wanted to leave) or broken piggie banks to impress a potential girlfriend to get me to the theater. Only when I had a good job that gave me extra regular cash did I begin to go frequently. And the more I went the more hooked I became.

ON BROADWAY is a glorious peak behind the curtain. It reveals to us what it i like to be on the other side of the orchestra pit. While it is not all encompassing, the film runs under 90 minutes so its limited (for example there are no long excerpts from shows), it does give us enough to get us started. We can begin to haunt the library and You Tube and elsewhere for more and more information. Hell, when the film was done I stated pulling books off my shelf and looking through old Playbills.

This is a great film.  It is an absolute must for anyone who loves the theater and want to know how the current iteration of Broadway came to be.

Highly recommended.

Breaking Bread (2019) NYJFF 2021

Dr. Nof Atamna-Ismaeel was the first person to win the Israeli Master Chef competition. Realizing that the best way to connect people and break down walls is to share a mill she creates the food festival which will bring together chefs who are both Jewish and Arab, Palestinian and Israeli in order to create friendships and connections based on a love of food.

This is a wonderful film. It is a glorious portrait of not only Atamna-Ismaeel but also many of the people whom she invited to the festival. Its a wonderful look into the various chefs' lives and loves of food. This is the cinematic equivalent to sitting in the kitchen of a really good cook and shooting the breeze while they cooked. Unfortunately since they are on the screen we can try what they are cooking.(this needs to screen with a buffett)

Truth be told this film is the best sort of  food porn. Watching the film I found I was getting hungrier and hungrier. I am a notoriously picky eater and yet while watching the film I kept going "I have no idea what that is but I want it". I was so hungry by the end, despite seeing this right after dinner that I ran to the kitchen and made a big second meal. (When you go see this at the film festival plan your eating accordingly)

What a great great film.

I love that this film works on so many different levels, it's a portrait of great people who cook, a portrait of society, it shows us food that we may never have known about and it shows us how we all aren't that different after all.

This film is a quiet little gem that will make your mouth water and stomach talk to you.

This was one of the best films I saw in 2019

The Red Orchestra (2020) NYJFF 2021

A clip used in Red Orchestra from one of the fiction films made on the group

This is the story of not one but two organizations set up before the Second World War called the Red Orchestra. Both were set up independently, and both fought the Nazis. The first was an organization formed by a group of friends in Germany, which included members of the military, who saw the dangers of the Nazis and tried to stop them from with in the country. The other was a Soviet based  spy organization that was originally set up to gather information from the west but changed its focus once war came to Europe.

Excellent documentary is put together using archival material, interviews with the relatives of the members and the two feature films that were made  on the separate organizations. It is a film that sucks you in and drags you revealing in its wake not only a story you may not have ever heard before but also revealing tales that echo down the decades.

This film is a stunner. Never mind that it is informational, this is a grand film that is simply compelling on its own terms. In all seriousness this is a film you'll want to curl up with on the couch and watch it over and over as you would any standard thriller. That is extremely high raise since it means that the filmmakers have made a film that makes history come to life and which connects the past to our lives here and now.

Possibly the first great film I saw in 2021. This film is a must see at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

Asia (2020) NYJFF 2021

Asia is more like Vika's sister than her mother. They act and behave more like teenagers than parent and child. However when Vika's illness worsens Asia will have to step up.

Good by by the numbers tragic drama hits all the expected notes. While extremely well acted and well made the film really doesn't do much more than expected with some of the turns foreshadowed well in advance or in the promotional material.

Not bad but Nothing special.

(Warning: The white subtitles for this film are frequently on a light or white background)

Tahara (2020) NYJFF 2021

TAHARA is a misfire.

The story of two high school BFFs who after a memorial service for a friend who committed suicide end up kissing each other sending their lives spinning off into unexpected directions.

Where do I begin? Probably with the aspect ratio. Shot largely so that that it has the narrow vertical aspect of cell phone video it suddenly springs to full widescreen for some very brief animated sequences which occur to illustrate the opening up of the two girls' world. It works the first time it is used but the following times the effect really isn’t there. Intellectually I understand why the aspect ratio changes were done but emotionally it feels like showing off.

The biggest problem though is the script doesn’t work. Both the characters of Carrie and Hannah seem older than their years. These aren’t teenagers but adults in teenagers bodies. Worse they seem like an adult’s idea of teenagers and not real people. They are full of witty lines in exactly the way real people never are. These are constructs not real people, regardless of how well they are acted.

The script is full of cute bits that take away from this having any notion that this is in any way linked to reality. For example a conversation between the girls at the memorial service consists of the two girls making faces at each other while subtitles reveal what they are supposed to be saying. It’s the wrong sort of attempt at being clever, and even if at the end we see that it is actually supposed to be a written conversation between the girls, it just doesn’t work.

The biggest problem is that the construction feels artificial. Everything takes place in one a couple of hours in a building that is largely empty and it doesn’t feel right. This feels like its been closed down for dome unknown reason It could work if this was on stage but confining events for film it just feels forced.

The couple the restricted setting with the way the movements of the characters around the building seems odd, with everything outside of the two main characters always seeming dependent upon which what the plot needs- do we need a crowd? Do we not? The girls have to talk alone lets give them a place to be alone. None of it feels right. How is that they can just wander around the building with no one about most of the day?  I am not against what happens but I am against how it happens here since it feels like the hand the writer/director moving everyone around.

What kills me is is that all of the pieces from the acting, to the one liners, to the basic plot, are all good. The problem here is that how they are put together doesn't work with the result the film as a whole just misses.

The Crossing (2020) NYJFF 2020

 

In Norway, Gerda, a young girl obsessed with the Three Musketeers is living blissfully with her parents and her brother. When the Nazis arrive and arrest her parents she must spring into action and get the Jewish children hiding in the basement to safety in Sweden. While complications arise Gerda must become  like her heroes and save the lives of people in need.

If you can ignore the opening narration THE CROSSING might be the first great film you see in 2021. A grand adventure that is going to keep you on the edge of your seats, its a perfectly formulated film that will work for kids as well as parents. It beautifully doesn't rely on nastiness in order to keep you glued to the screen. Rather the film simply tells it's tale and lets the details carry the day.

I loved this film a great deal. While I went into the film thinking it might be a nice minor distraction I came out finding that it is a spectacular fil on its own terms capable of standing up to the best Hollywood has to offer. To be perfectly honest it is finding films like this that makes the New York Jewish Film Festival the most important festival to start any film year.

And please forgive the lack of details I don't want to clue you into the twists lurking with in this gem.

THE CROSSING begins screening virtually January 14th. For more information and tickets go here.

The New York Jewish Film Festival Curtain Raiser 2021

Running January 13 to the 26 The New York Jewish Film Festival is a must attend. Actually it is the first must see festival of every year. Yea I know some people say that's Sundance but the truth is NYJFF is the first fest I look forward to since it's a film that starts my Best of the Year list every year (I'm not joking).

A co-presentation between The Jewish Museum and Film and Lincoln Center the festival showcases films that transcend being just about Jewish matters but highlight things that cross cultures such as food and Broadway. Trust me when I say the films here are about humanity not just one segment of it.

I absolutely love this festival with all my heart.

If you want to know how great this festival is consider that I was seriously considering just quietly stepping away from covering films. I was and am burned out. Part of it was the Covid shut down limited what was out there. I was so disheartened I spent most of December not watching any films at all. And then I got an email from the festival stating it's line up and asking if I wanted to see any films. Suddenly I sprung to life and I began to dive into the films with abandon. I was jazzed about the films, not because there was anything I was looking to see rather because I knew that whatever I was going to see was going to be kick ass. In all seriousness this is one of the best programmed festival of any year. No they aren't perfect, but you will never see a film and wonder why you were seeing it.

As it stands now I've seen a good number of the films and I have a few more to go. I recommend everything.  However if you need a push toward something here are the absolute must sees of  the one's I've seen so far:

BREAKING BREAD- a hunger inducing hopeful film about making connections through food
ON BROADWAY- a wonderful look at the history of Broadway via the last 50 years
THE CROSSING- two Norwegian  kids must get the Jewish children their parents were hiding from the Nazi's to safety. It's nail biting fun
RED ORCHESTRA- the story of two seemingly unrelated groups that fought the Nazis is a documentary so good you'll curl up on the couch to watch it over and over again just like your favorite thriller
IRMI- Glorious portrait of a hell of a woman- this is a film we all need now

That's it for now. All that is left to say: For tickets and more information go here.