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Debut feature questions rigid adherence to faith
By MARILYN H. KARFELD
Senior Staff Reporter
“Do dogs have souls?” Menahem Eidelman asks his father Abraham, a Talmudic scholar and teacher. The young boy has just watched a loyal German shepherd leap into an ambulance taking its ill owner to the hospital.
“Absolutely not,” sternly replies Abraham, a Haredi (fervently Orthodox) rabbi in Jerusalem. Animals have no will, no sins, no commandments; there is no heaven for a good, devoted pet.
Such rigid adherence to a set of beliefs and its anguishing effect on one family is the theme of “My Father My Lord,” writer-director David Volach’s spare and moving debut feature. The minimally plotted Israeli film recounts the daily life of a strictly observant family and their vacation to a beach on the Dead Sea. It won the top prize at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York.
When Abraham shoos away a dove sitting on her nest of chicks at Menahem’s school, he justifies his action to his distressed son with an obscure Torah teaching. “We do everything written in the Torah without asking why because those are the laws of the Almighty.”
Religious tenets are black and white to Abraham (Assi Dayan, Moshe Dayan’s son), but his only child Menahem (Elan Griff) is curious and questioning. While gruff, Abraham obviously loves his son and his wife Esther (Sharon Hacohen Bar), but they are subsidiary to his all-engrossing faith. In contrast, Esther softens some of the religious strictures with warmth and outward expressions of love and emotion.
With an insider’s eye for telling detail, Volach, who grew up in the Jerusalem Haredi community with 19 brothers and sisters, opens a window on an obscure, doctrinaire world.
Abraham forces his son to rip up a small, cherished photo of Africans with painted tribal markings because it represents idolatry. The camera lingers on Menahem’s distressed face as a solitary tear runs down his cheek. In another scene, Esther, upset with Abraham’s authoritarian ways, writes a complaint to her husband, rather than speaking aloud to him in her own bedroom.
With poetic cinematography and understated, nuanced performances from a superb cast, the film, which begins with Abraham weeping, comes full circle to a heartbreaking climax. Darkening skies, doves, a father named Abraham and references to the sacrifice of Isaac, the film is heavy with symbols and portents, making it almost a biblical parable.
While clearly criticizing a fundamentalist way of life, Volach leavens his indictment with affection and compassion toward all of his characters.
Review reprinted from the Aug. 29 issue of the CJN. Not rated. 1:14.
mkarfeld@cjn.org
3.5 stars
“Absolutely not,” sternly replies Abraham, a Haredi (fervently Orthodox) rabbi in Jerusalem. Animals have no will, no sins, no commandments; there is no heaven for a good, devoted pet.
Such rigid adherence to a set of beliefs and its anguishing effect on one family is the theme of “My Father My Lord,” writer-director David Volach’s spare and moving debut feature. The minimally plotted Israeli film recounts the daily life of a strictly observant family and their vacation to a beach on the Dead Sea. It won the top prize at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York.
When Abraham shoos away a dove sitting on her nest of chicks at Menahem’s school, he justifies his action to his distressed son with an obscure Torah teaching. “We do everything written in the Torah without asking why because those are the laws of the Almighty.”
Religious tenets are black and white to Abraham (Assi Dayan, Moshe Dayan’s son), but his only child Menahem (Elan Griff) is curious and questioning. While gruff, Abraham obviously loves his son and his wife Esther (Sharon Hacohen Bar), but they are subsidiary to his all-engrossing faith. In contrast, Esther softens some of the religious strictures with warmth and outward expressions of love and emotion.
With an insider’s eye for telling detail, Volach, who grew up in the Jerusalem Haredi community with 19 brothers and sisters, opens a window on an obscure, doctrinaire world.
Abraham forces his son to rip up a small, cherished photo of Africans with painted tribal markings because it represents idolatry. The camera lingers on Menahem’s distressed face as a solitary tear runs down his cheek. In another scene, Esther, upset with Abraham’s authoritarian ways, writes a complaint to her husband, rather than speaking aloud to him in her own bedroom.
With poetic cinematography and understated, nuanced performances from a superb cast, the film, which begins with Abraham weeping, comes full circle to a heartbreaking climax. Darkening skies, doves, a father named Abraham and references to the sacrifice of Isaac, the film is heavy with symbols and portents, making it almost a biblical parable.
While clearly criticizing a fundamentalist way of life, Volach leavens his indictment with affection and compassion toward all of his characters.
Review reprinted from the Aug. 29 issue of the CJN. Not rated. 1:14.
mkarfeld@cjn.org
3.5 stars
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