Jason goes to Jewfest North--Thursday, July 31st

A LIFE IN DIRTY MOVIES. Ah, yeah, some good old porn made by a nice Jewish boy. Joe Sarno is sometimes called the Ingmar Bergman of porn. Switching between archival footage of his early films and a contemporary story of him trying to get a new film off the ground, it takes a very sympathetic view of this Sarno as a serious filmmaker who happened to have an interest in making movies about sex. Particularly interesting is how he focuses on female desires in his films--something that porn nowadays almost totally ignores. I haven't seen his films, and I'm not about to rush out to get them, but this film makes a solid and compelling case for their artistic merit.

COMEDY WARRIORS. Now this was kind of a treat. Injured Iraq/Afghanistan veterans who deal with their pain through comedy and are trained by standup comedians (Bob Saget, Louis Black, and others are featured) to be standup comedians for a show. This is therapy, but it's also genuinely funny. A common refrain from the professional comedians is how easily these guys have stage presence and make them look stupid for spending so many years honing their craft when these "amateurs" take to it right away. Of course they joke about their injuries (most of them dealt with their injuries through humor from the beginning, which is how they were picked for the program) and in the live show that is the climax of the movie, they all--to borrow an inappropriate term--kill. No pity laughs from the audience, they were genuine, and same goes for the movie.

MAGIC MEN. And finally I ended the night with a comedy about an atheist Holocaust survivor and his devout orthodox rapper son who travel to Greece for an important business trip. It's not quite the screwball comedy it sounds like, but it is very funny and poignant. See, the dad is not just there for business, he also wants to look up the man who hid him from the Nazis, and taught him magic tricks (which he, in turn, taught his son.) And so we take a journey through a beautiful Greece (with its crumbling economy) along with a nice...woman of the evening...who he meets in the hotel. And a good time is had.

Total Running Time: 255 minutes
My Total Minutes: 368,654

Jason goes to Jewfest--Saturday, Aug. 4

The festival continues in San Rafael for two more days, but I'm done with it. So here we go, 4 movies yesterday:

The day started with music, with the documentary "Yiddish Soul" and the accompanying concert film, "Concert Yiddish Soul". The first is pretty heavy on the music, with just the bare minimum introduction of the history of Yiddish klezmer music and how it was all but destroyed in the shoah. There's brief introductions of the musicians, Chava Alberstein, Myriam Fuks, Shura Lipovsky, Karsten Troyke (my favorite, he did the best job of mixing comedy into his performance), the KlezRoym. Interestingly, a lot of the newer musicians aren't even Jewish, but Yiddish klezmer has achieved a respected status as "world music" that can be enjoyed by anyone. If "Yiddish Soul" mostly lets the music speak for itself, "Concert Yiddish Soul" does only that. It's just raw concert footage, but after watching the first movie you know all the musicians in the concert, and you can just sit back and enjoy the music. Which is nice because too many music documentaries cut the performances short just when you're getting into it. This isn't really the case with "Yiddish Soul", but it's a good idea for many other music documentaries to include a companion piece with just the concert.

Next up, the musical day continued, moving a little further east to Arabic music in "Between Two Notes". Specifically, it focuses on Arab Jews who played classical Arab music and keep the tradition alive (although under fire) in Israel. Director Florence Strauss (daughter of famous Egyptian born French film producer Robert Hakim) is herself descended from Arab Jews, and used this movie to explore her own roots. There's some obvious points about using music to bridge gaps (a major theme of the festival this year), but again it focuses mostly on the music and lets it speak for itself. It is interesting to hear so many scholars talk about quarter tones and how western ears don't know how to listen to Middle Eastern music. They tend to find it repetitive (and songs allegedly go on for hours), but if you have an ear that can hear the quarter tones you realize that it's not repetition it's variations on a theme. Well, my ears can't hear it, but if that's so this is a case where a documentary cutting performances short is a good thing, because I never really got bored with the music. Oh, and the guy who put an extra valve in his trumpet so he could play those tones, thereby inventing the "Arab Trumpet" was way cool.

Next up was yet another documentary, but his one wasn't about music, it was about crypto-Jews; Jews who were forced to convert during the Spanish Inquisition but secretly kept vestiges of their Jewish heritage (lighting candles on Friday night, not eating pork, etc.). "The Longing: The Forgotten Jews of South America" looks at some contemporary descendants of crypto-Jews and their journey to convert (or re-convert) back to Judaism and find a sense of community with their fellow Jews. The tragic thing is, the small pockets of established Jewish community that exist are all holocaust survivors and have (understandably) become very insular and distrusting of outsiders. So a reform conversion--performed by Kansas City rabbi and the film's hero Jacques Cuikerkorn--isn't good enough to let them into the synagogue. However, as one subject finds out, neither is an orthodox conversion. Basically, the established Jewish communities come off looking rather bad, and they don't help their cause by mostly refusing to be in the movie. Ultimately the triumph of the conversions is mostly destroyed by the epilogue showing that one year later things are even tougher for them, while they aren't welcomed into the Jewish community but are shunned more by the overwhelming Roman Catholic culture. Another note, the Catholic culture is so ingrained in South America that it's hard to shake, and it's really funny to see someone kiss a mezuzah and then cross herself.

I needed rush tickets to get into the next movie, "Sweet Mud", and so I should have ran out into line right when the credits rolled (un?) fortunately, there was a panel discussion on crypto-Jews after the movie, and darn it if it wasn't so interesting that I decided to stay and listen instead. So by the time I got out the rush line was way too long, and after waiting a bit to see how it might go, I decided to give up. You see, whenever I know I'm going to stand in a rush line, I have a backup plan if I don't get tickets. In this case, my backup was to stroll over to the Shattuck Cinema and see "The Ten" instead. It's a wacky comedy of 10 short stories each based on one of the commandments. So there is a Jewish tie in there, but it's not in the festival and so it's the subject of a different post.

Anyway, it got out just in time for me to wander back and catch the final Jewfest film in Berkeley, "Three Mothers", which was nominated for 9 Ophirs (Israeli Academy Awards) and won 2, but lost best picture to a tie between "Aviva, My Love" and, of all thing, "Sweet Mud" (another reason I figured I could miss it, I'd probably have other chances to see it). "Three Mothers" is about triplets--Flora, Rose, and Yasmin--born in Alexandria, Egypt around 1940. King Farouk himself came to witness the newborns. But they're Jewish, and so they eventually had to leave and go to Israel. The narrative jumps back and forth in time, from their childhood to their young adulthood (marriage, children), to their old age, where Yasmin is dying of kidney failure and is desperately in need of a transplant. This triggers all three of them to go to Rose's daughter Rucha who works at a video production company making video wills for the dying. They each in turn unburden themselves of a terrible event in their past, one that simultaneously strains and strengthens their odd symbiotic relationship. Very emotional, although possibly relying too much on easy emotional shocks (loss of a son, husband, etc), but a very well made movie with some marvelous acting and a great look (cinematography is one of the Ophirs it won).

And that, as far as I'm concerned, is San Francisco Jewfest 2007. As I said, it continues in San Rafael for two more days, but I'm busy today preparing for a business trip to Birmingham, AL early Monday morning. I should be back Wednesday, just in time for Dead Channels on Thursday.

Jason goes to Jewfest--Thursday, Aug. 2

Two more movies, this was the night of crossing the Israeli-Palestinian border.

First up was "Bubble" by Eytan Fox, the gay Israeli director of "Yossi & Jagger". I've never actually seen an Eytan Fox movie before, but I've heard he's a talented filmmaker. And after seeing "Bubble", I believe it. The bubble of the title refers to the neighborhood of Tel Aviv that's sort of a cross between Greenwhich Village and Castro Street, the gay bohemian, very liberal neighborhood. Noam, Yali, and Lulu share a flat there. Lulu is a peppy (and straight) aspiring fashion designer. Yali is a silly coffee shop manager. And Noam is a moody record store clerk and the only one of them who hasn't refused military reserve duty. There he meets Ashraf, a Palestinian who can't legally stay in Israel. Still, after they hook up, Noam convinces his roommates to take him in and give him a fake Jewish name. Politics and love collide, and with all the contradiction there's bound to be tragedy. And the inevitable occurs when Ashraf has to return to the Palestinian territories for his sister's wedding (to a local Hamas leader). With all the tragedy to follow, it's still a slick, fast moving political-romantic drama-tragi-comedy that I understand is Eytan Fox's forte. Very well done, I'll have to check out more of his work.

And finally there was the wonderful documentary, "Knowledge is the Beginning". Daniel Barenboim is a very talented Jewish conductor and pianist. He lives mostly in Berlin but is an Israeli citizen. In the early 1990's he met the Palestinian literary professor (at Columbia University) Edward Said. They became friends and founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, a student orchestra for Israelis and Arabs together. Their goal is to bridge the gap and promote understanding between Israelis and Palestinians. This documentary follows their inspirational story from shortly after their founding up to their 2005 concert in Ramallah. A remarkable story, and an equally remarkable movie which is simultaneously a series of concert movies and a documentary about Barenboim, Said, and the use of music as a a political tool.

And that was Thursday, and now I'm all caught up. Just in time to see 4 or 5 more movies tomorrow (depending on if I'm successful at getting rush tickets for "Sweet Mud").

Jason goes to Jewfest--Wednesday, Aug. 1

Two more movies Wednesday, here we go:

"Bad Faith" is a French romantic comedy about a Muslim man and a Jewish girl who are in love. Everything is fine, until she gets pregnant. Even then, that's even better until they have to introduce each other to their parents. Then things go bad. First her parents freak out, then they mellow out, then they try to convert him. Meanwhile he's terrified to bring her home, and when he gets up the courage she's stuck at work that night. Meanwhile with questions of how the child will be raised, they both start drifting from completely secular to more and more religious. He fasts for Ramadan, she puts a mezuzah on their door (which he has to hide when his mother comes for dinner). Things veer from comic to tragic in a heartbeat, but ultimately it is a comedy and there is a positive ending (without giving too much away). I competent and sometimes brilliant directorial debut by Roschdy Zem, an accomplished actor who plays the male lead Ismaël and was also excellent in "Days of Glory".

Next up was the short film program, "Jews in Shorts". Here we go:
"I'm Charlie Chaplin"--3 year old girl love Chaplin, dresses up as him twice for Halloween. By local Jewish director Jay Rosenblatt, starring his daughter. Pretty funny.
"Orders of Love"-- Jes Benstock (who made "Holocaust Tourist" that played here last year) makes another graphically inventive, kinetic, and highly effective and moving film, this time about his worries about his family history of depression and suicide, and what that means for his young son.
"Tolya"--A sweet and comical story of a toothless Belarusan in Israel calling home to tell his wife he loves her.
"Naturalized"--In Soviet Russia, a certain form of cosmetic surgery signifying a Jew's covenant with G-d was banned. For those who've emigrated, the decision of whether or not to have the surgery can be difficult. But if you've made the decision and your family bursts into the hospital to object, it can be hilarious.
" Weitzman Street No. 10"--Navigating Tel Aviv can be difficult for a newly arrived Russian family. The air raid siren is scary, but the behavior of their neighbors is just bizarre.
" Yedidiah's Collection"--A short documentary about the withdrawal of Gaza settlers, told from the point of view of Yedidiah, a young boy who collects spent ammunition. That's just life.
" Your Younger Daughter Rachel"--A drama of household abuse, fear, and a young woman trying to live with her abusive father and cowardly mother. Good, but sad and long. It kind of dragged on, and that's just not what I wanted to end the night on.

And that was Wednesday. I'm almost caught up.

[Update: I forgot to mention that there was a short before "Bad Faith". "A Kiss is a Kiss is a Kiss". Unlikely couples are put on a couch and the director tries to coax them to kiss. There's a pair of straight men, an old lady with a teenage boy, a liberal woman with an orthodox man (who can't even touch a woman unless he's married to her), and a Palestinian man with a female Israeli soldier. Three of the four couples actually kiss. Guess which one doesn't.]

Jason goes to Jewfest--Tuesday, July 31

So I've actually been at Jewfest all week, but I've been too busy to write. Luckily tonight there's no movies because of the sabbath. However, there are movies tomorrow, and the sabbath doesn't end until sundown Saturday. What's up with that?

Anyway, now is my chance to write up the movies I've been seeing, starting with last Tuesday. First up was a short and feature about, of all things, poetry. I'm not a poet, and I don't pretend to "get" poetry. Honestly, I saw this because it was scheduled at a good time for me. And there's a reason I do stuff like that, because every so often I'll find a fantastic movie that just blows me away, and that's exactly what happened (with the feature). First, the short, "Ezekiel's Wheels" was the American-Israeli poet Shirley Kaufman reading one of her new works, "Ezekiel's Wheels". The poem starts with her struggle with starting to go blind (she has since recovered) and grows to an all-consuming philosophy, incorporating art, scripture, and life. The movie is mostly her reading, with some sparsely used stock footage, mostly of bombs. It's not bad, but it's really for poetry enthusiasts.

But the feature, "So Long Are You Young" was amazing and can really appeal to anyone. It's a documentary about Samuel Ullman and his poem "Youth". The story in a nutshell: Samuel Ullman was a German Jewish immigrant to America in the late 1800's. Specifically, he settled in Birmingham, Alabama. He was mostly a poor merchant, but very active in community service, including serving on the school board and pushing for equal schooling for black children. In the early 1900's, mourning the death of his wife and going deaf, he wrote "Youth", which promptly sold very few copies. However, it had it's admirers, although it was often reprinted without attribution. One of those unattributed (and slightly corrupted) copies was given to Gen. Douglas MacArthur when he was stationed in the Philippines. When MacArthur took charge of rebuilding Japan after the war, he kept a copy of the poem in his office. The devastated, demoralized Japanese took it to heart, and drew courage and inspiration from it. One of those who read the poem was Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of a successful electronics company that specialized in cheap versions of American products. He had an idea for a grand expansion of his company, but feared in his 70's that he was too old and feeble to pull it off. After reading the poem, he went ahead and founded Panasonic. Although few Americans know the poem, much less the poet, it's practically mandatory reading for Japanese CEO's, and is largely credited with Japan's post-war recovery. Pretty amazing, I have nothing to add. I just really dig true stories of small events with amazingly wide-reaching effects (for another of these types of stories, also with a Jewish twist, check out "Beethoven's Hair")

And the second movie of the night was the one I've been waiting for since I first heard about it. "My Fuhrer: The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler", is a wacky slapstick comedy about Hitler. Specifically, Hitler near the end of the war. He's supposed to be preparing a New Year's Day speech to inspire the German people to victory, but he's stuck in a depressed nervous breakdown. So Goebbels has a brilliant idea to get him an acting coach. So he finds his old acting coach, Adolf Gruenbaum. It was easy, since he's in a concentration camp all they have to do is track down his number and find out if he's still alive. The idea is a Jewish instructor will inspire Hitler's greatest strength--his rage. Problem is, Gruenbaum's methods work, and Hitler starts opening up to him. Meanwhile, Gruenbaum starts out looking for a chance to kill Hitler, barely fails at first, then decides to not kill him at first because they'd certainly kill him and his family, but eventually because he maybe feels sorry for the bed-wetting, pathetic little twerp whose father beat him. The most fascinating thing for me when watching it was noticing how often just one person would laugh. Everyone is so tense with the subject matter that very rarely can everyone just relax and laugh. For me, it was when Gruenbaum is sent back to his camp, and when Hitler asks for him Goebbels explains that he's unavailable because he went "on holiday with his family". Just the idea of a) a Jew being able to go on holiday in Germany during WWII, and b) someone working closely with Hitler being allowed to go on holiday with a deadline looming in 3 days, and c) the idea that he couldn't postpone his holiday until after the speech, and d) Hitler buys it. That's funny for me. But my favorite scene has to be when Gruenbaum gets Hitler to get down on all fours and bark like a dog as an "exercise". Hitler's dog, "Blondi" runs over and mounts him. At that moment I thought, "dude, I'm watching a dog hump Hitler. I'm the happiest Jew in the world right now".

I wanted to end this post on that point, but I should mention that Hitler was played by Helge Schneider, a famous German comedian (described in the introduction as the equivalent of Steve Martin in Germany). And Guenbaum was played by Ulrich Mühe, who was brilliant in "The Lives of Others" and who tragically died of stomach cancer just two weeks ago. Thank you for you final role, Ulrich!

Jason goes to Jewfest--Monday, July 30

I know it's been a while since I've posted. It's been a while since I've seen a movie. I've been in Alaska to see my darling little sister get married. You can see amateur photographs (courtesy of my big brother) of me in a tuxedo and me scaring small children here.

Anyway, I just got back and went to the SF Jewish Film Festival (henceforth called "Jewfest") in Berkeley. Two movies last Monday, here they are:

First up was "Orthodox Stance". Jewfest is doing a whole series on Jewish boxers this year. Turns out from ~1900-1930 there were something like 27 or 28 Jewish world champion boxers in various weight classes. In fact, in the early 20th century, Jews were the #1 ethnic group in boxing. Who knew? Well, this documentary is about a contemporary Jewish boxer, Dmitriy Salita. Born in Odessa, his parents immigrated to Brooklyn when he was a child. He took up boxing when he was twelve, and won amateur titles in New York. But when the world amateur tournament in Budapest refused to accommodate his demand to not box on the Sabbath, he decided to go pro, and started delivering whuppings--but not until after sundown on Saturdays. In the movie he proves to be an engaging and charismatic subject, as are his boxing trainers and rabbis. In fact, some of the greatest moments are ringside shots of old boxing veterans cheering alongside orthodox rabbis and other assorted Jews (and one sign proclaiming Dmitriy to be the "Greatest Jewish fighter since Samson"). I didn't bother looking up his record before the movie, so although they're all in the past, I didn't know if he won or lost, and the documentary format creates a real sense of anticipation and worry during the fights--it's not like a narrative film where you know the good guy will win, it's a slave to reality. I liked that, although it'd be very easy to look up his record and now how he's going to do in advance. The director was in attendance, but I stayed for the second movie rather than seeing his Q&A. Unfortunately, Dmitriy couldn't be here for this screening because he's back in New York training for another fight (he was there for the San Francisco showing last week).

The second movie was a documentary more in keeping with the stereotype of Jews. "The Chosen Ones" is about young Jewish musicians in New York (mostly, it branches out to Germany and Israel late in the movie). Okay, Jews and musical ability is a pretty common stereotype, but these are a little different. These are the young, out there, orthodox but edgy music. There's a black convert who raps in Hebrew , a rabbi who plays humorous non-PC folk rock (he's my favorite), and others like Blue Fringe and Balkan Beat Box. Director Wendla Nolle is a German Christian woman, so she's often an outsider in the scene (in orthodox communities, it's illegal for a man to hear a woman other than his wife sing, hence no female musicians made it into the movie). However she is a musician, and made this movie to explore the relation between music and spirituality (which is why she chose orthodox Jews instead of any Jewish musician). In that respect, I can't say she was entirely successful. Perhaps because I'm not all that spiritual (or all that musical), but I think also because in the search for more non-stereotypical musicians, they tend to come off as a series of novelty acts. They're still all deeply religious, and incorporate religion into their music, but their stories are more often about resolving apparent conflicts between their spirituality and their choice of musical styles. In any case, I will grant that the visuals are very well done. Wendla Nolle has a great eye for composing shots, and the music is often very entertaining.

And that was Monday, I saw two more movies Tuesday, including a wacky slapstick comedy about Hitler. And I'll be seeing two more tonight. More posts to follow soon.

Jason previews upcoming events--SF Jewish Film Festival

So my regular readers might notice there's been a slight downturn of activity here. Basically we're in the summer blockbuster doldrums. Yeah, I still watch some blockbusters, if I'm interested, but typically in the summer I fall off to 1-2 movies a week. And now I have to remind myself that 1-2 movies a weekend is still a lot to most people, just not to me.

Anyway, these summer doldrums are a combination of a number of things: A bit of fatigue, a bit of 'not much watchable in theaters', a bit of 'better things to do while the weather is nice', and a whole lot of 'not many big festivals that really interest me'. You see, the major film festivals (at least for me) in the area are mostly loaded into the front of the year, with Indiefest, Cinequest, and Asianfest all nearly back-to-back-to-back, then a little breather and SF International. There still are some in the summer. Holehead of course, which I attended. There's also Frameline, the LGBT festival, which I skipped this year because it was right after Holehead and I was exhausted (literally, Frameline's opening night was Holehead's closing night), but I've seen some movies there before. There are also the silent film fests, both in the Niles district of my hometown of Fremont (where Charlie Chaplin had a studio way back when) and this upcoming weekend in San Francisco. But I missed the first and looks like I'll be busy this weekend (possibly I'll see the Sunday program, but I'll be busy Friday and Saturday).

Well, the point is there are a couple of upcoming events that I'll attend and I'm excited about. And the first one is the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, starting a week from tomorrow. This is the oldest Jewish film festival in the world, celebrating its 27th year. The nice thing for me personally is that I'm actually kind of in the demographic for this festival. I'm Jewish, or half-Jewish (dad's Jewish, so technically I'm not really Jewish at all since it's a matrilineal culture), or not religiously Jewish but dig that part of my heritage. It's pretty clear at the Asian American Festival that I'm not really Asian, I just enjoy their movies--and I should emphasize that everyone's really friendly about it. At Frameline, I've occasionally had to explain that I'm not actually gay, but when you're desperate any film festival will do (and again, they're very friendly about it, too). But here I'll get to jew out with my tribe, and that's cool.

I'll actually be out of town for the first week, so I'll miss most of the San Francisco shows (I might come to opening night, unless the film plays again at a more convenient time for me), but I'll be back for most of the Berkeley and/or Palo Alto section of the festival. I haven't worked out my entire schedule or bought tickets, but I'll probably be spending most of the time in Berkeley at the Rhoda Theater.

There is one film I'm very specifically looking forward to. A few years ago, Dani Levy got the film world talking by making "Alles Auf Zucker!" ("Go For Zucker!"), the first post WWII German Jewish comedy to win best picture at the German Film Awards (their equivalent of the Oscars). That ended up opening the SF Jewish Film Festival a couple years ago (where he claimed that Germans don't have a sense of humor of their own, they have a Jewish sense of humor, hence it was natural for him to make a Jewish comedy in Germany). His follow-up sounds way more outrageous, "My Fuehrer: The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler", a wacky slapstick comedy about the final days of Hitler, and from the moment over a year ago when I heard he was making this, I was dying to see it. Can't wait, I'm planning on seeing the July 31 show in Berkeley.