Tag: Jews

L’Chaim

On March 22, 2010

Films for the 18th annual Toronto Jewish Film Festival were announced today -and what a great selection of choices! Funny, sad, historic, romantic, enraging, inspiring -the festival really runs the gamut of human experience, all while keeping intact its sense of exploration and openness. Running April 17th to 25th, the fest will be showcasing 93 films from 18 different countries; seven of the films are making their North American premieres.

Last year I had the opportunity of interviewing the festival’s leaders, including Executive Director Helen Zukerman, who explained to me that the point of the festival isn’t to engage in political debates but to facilitate dialogue and understanding, all while celebrating the past, present, and future of Jewish culture. A big part of that culture is comic -as in funny, sure (works of the Marx Brothers were featured in years past) -but also in an artistic, literal sense. People of the Comic Book: The Creators Of Superheroes, Graphic Novels & Toons is a series running as part of TJFF that explores the connection between the best-known superheroes (Superman, Batman, Spider-Man), and their Jewish creators. Animators, authors, and filmmakers will be attending to mark the occasion, among them writer Harvey Pekar (American Splendor), and award-winning graphic novelist Ben Katchor. The series will also include a film about animation legend Al Hirschfeld, a screening of Ron Mann‘s Comic Book Confidential, as well as a midnight screening of Ralph Bakshi‘s hilariously ribald Fritz The Cat.

Within the Festival programming, there’s also (much to my delight) a nice focus on the experiences of Jewish women. Among the huge number of selections is Ahead Of Time, the story of the truly incredible Ruth Gruber, a photographer, journalist, foreign correspondent and humanitarian. After World War Two, Gruber campaigned to allow Holocaust refugees from Europe into the United States; she also covered the Nuremberg trials, which are covered extensively in another work at the festival, Nuremberg: Its Lesson For Today (details below) Gruber was witness to the Exodus 1947 ship enter Haifa Harbour following its being attacked by by the Royal Navy. She subsequently flew to Cyprus to meet and interview the refugees, and later, was the only journalist allowed by the British to accompany the refugees on their tragic return trip to Germany. Gruber was honoured in 2008 by the National Coalition Against Censorship. And that’s just part of her life.

Ahead Of Time is paired with The Irene Hilda Story (L’Histoire D’Irene), detailing the history of Irene Hilda herself, a cabaret singer who was forced to flee Paris. Still in the music vein is The Jazz Baroness, which traces the relationship between Pannonica (“Nica”) Rothschild and jazz legend Thelonius Monk. Rothschild left her wealthy background, her husband, even her children, to follow the married Monk and his magical sound. Even when her family cut her off financially, she still helped out her jazz musician friends as best she could, giving them what money she had for rent, food, and instruments. Monk took her deep into the bebop world of the day -so deep in fact, that she was exposed to the ugly, unpoetic side of the scene; like a sad badge of cred, Charlie Parker wound up dying in Nica’s suite at the Stanhope Hotel. The film, made by Rothschild’s great-niece, includes readings of the Baroness’ letters (by Helen Mirren) as well as music Monk wrote specifically for Rothschild. Dreamy.

Returning to the hard edges of history, however, and that dreaminess is soon vanished. Berlin ’36 portrays the Nazis’ recruitment of Gretel Bergmann, a world-class Jewish high jumper. The Nazis were so stunned by her mastery, and so worried about that mastery discrediting their racial theories, they took a rather drastic step to ensure her failure at the Olympics: they hired a man in drag to take her place. Berlin ’36 is complemented by What If? The Helene Mayer Story, which tells the story of fencer Helene Mayer who won a gold medal for Germany in 1928. She moved to the U.S. in the 1930s after being kicked out of her German fencing club for being half-Jewish. Her return to Germany however, after IOC pressure on the country, may have helped to whitewash Nazi racial policies internationally.

Those policies are explored in detail with Nuremberg: Its Lesson For Today. Completed in 1948, the film was widely shown in Germany in ’48-49, though its release in the U.S. was withheld, in part because of the graphic, upsetting nature of its content. Original footage was painstakingly restored by filmmakers Sandra Schulberg and Josh Waletzky. The film documents how Allied prosecution teams built their case against Nazi War criminals; courtroom sequences are edited together with the Nazis’ own documents and films, one of which depicts the concentration camps that so shocked the military tribunal. Even nearly 70 years later, those images are still totally gut-wrenching and horrific. I want to see Nuremberg but I’m not sure I’ll be able to.

Then again, those symbols of hate aren’t so far from current reality. Hearing about the awful racial slurs that were hurled today at black politicians today in the United States over recent health care reforms, I can’t help but feel that a film like Nuremberg: Its Lesson For Today is, in fact, just that. It’s more relevant and timely than ever; hatred still exists, however gussied-up and hidden (or not) it might be. All it takes is a mob fueled by ignorance and fear to spread hatred like a cancer through society. Showing Nuremberg: Its Lesson For Today is a vital reminder for us -all of us -that hatred is never a wide road leading to greener pastures, but rather, a cracked narrow path of stones leading to a crushing dead end. The Toronto Jewish Film Festival remains as relevant, fresh, and important as ever.

For full information on the Festival, including schedule and ticketing, go to www.tjff.com.

Think, Do, Talk

By Catherine Kustanczy

On March 9, 2010

In opera

So many things can drive friends apart: time, maturity, distance. Sometimes people grow apart gradually; other times, they are driven apart, taking refuge in their respective intransigent poles. Either way, it’s always sad. Canadian playwright Michael Nathanson has dramatized this split with his 2007 play, Talk, currently running in Toronto at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts. The production is a thoughtful, insightful piece of theatre that is deceptive for its naturalistic style and chatty structure. Produced by the Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company, the work is both confrontational (in that you’ll be forced to re-examine your own beliefs) and inspirational (in so far as you may want to call up long-lost friends). In Nathanson’s work, it’s not so much circumstance but politics that drives a wedge between two men who’ve been friends for 18 years. A simple -or not-so-simple, depending on your viewpoint –word used by Gordon’s new girlfriend causes a rift that leads to a wide, seemingly insurmountable chasm. The varying reactions of the pair to the word’s use proves to be the unraveling of the friendship. Was it inevitable? Was the political situation of the Middle East the sleeping leviathan lying between the pair, awaiting its summons in the form of a (never-seen) woman?

Nathanson doesn’t answer these questions, but he does give us clues. Talk, for all its talking, is not merely a tough examination of Mid-East politics; it’s a close exploration of the ebbs and tides of the relationship between two men, of ways hidden currents move and shift through time and experience. The playwright muses on what might’ve occurred had Josh, the Jewish character, chosen not to express his concerns when he was able to, at the pair’s initial reuniting following Gordon introducing his lady love. As we see in small, simple gestures, even if Josh had decided to hold his tongue, the friendship would still come apart, albeit in a more pernicious, painfully slow way.

Director Ted Dykstra inherently understands the heart that beats behind the angry, passionate political arguments; it’s a heart that the two men share, but which is destined to crack in two. With carefully considered blocking, a simple, elegant design and dramatic, clear lighting (both by Steve Lucas), the characters’ various feelings and reactions (expressed both inwardly and outwardly) are expressed as the two try to hammer out common ground while, on some level, knowingly smashing the continental coastlines of difference. Performers Kevin Bundy (as Gordon) and Michael Rubenfeld (as Josh) give genuinely passionate, moving performances as the two longtime buddies whose conflicts are both personal and political in nature.

Nathanson, who is also a producer with the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre Company, spoke about the writing of the play in the post-performance discussion I attended, and while he shied away from admitting the play is based on actual experience, he did say its events were inspired by the fall-out he and a friend had over an email that he’d been sent after 9/11. The incident forced him to consider what comes to be a major thematic motif of the play: “At what point, as a Jew, do I say, ‘You can’t do this’?” The choice that faces Josh -to speak or not to speak -is one that haunts the entire work, and it gives Talk a certain bittersweet flavor that’s similarly reflected in the choice to leave Gordon’s new girlfriend unseen. This technique renders the character (and her perceived influence over Gordon) all the more powerful, if equally mysterious; how much is Josh’s outrage political, and how much is pure jealousy? As Nathanson reminded us in the discussion, director Dykstra approached the work as a love story, which it unquestionably is: the deep vein of friendship that binds, however, also divides. It’s a line neither man seems willing to step across by the work’s end. You’ll leave thinking not only about the world politics that can -and do -divide people, but about personal politics that leave terrible scars.

Talk runs at the Jane Mallett Theatre / St. Lawrence Centre in Toronto through March 20th.

A Taste of Peace

By Catherine Kustanczy

On May 31, 2009

In opera

Oral sex and peace. What do the two have in common?

Apparently plenty, according to the young protagonist of Jonathan Garfinkel‘s intriguing work, The House of Many Tongues, currently running at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre through to this Wednesday. Playing since the end of April, this magic realism-esque piece touches on sex, family, history, politics, fantasy, art, age, and… uh, toilets. All at once. It’s a tall order indeed, and it doesn’t always succeed, but it makes for some interesting, challenging viewing nonetheless.

The plot revolves around fifteen-year-old Alex, a sexually curious Israeli living with his ex-Army-officer father, Shimon. Alex thinks he has found a fail-proof method to bring peace in the Middle East: Jewish men should go down on Palestinian women, and Palestinian men should go down on Jewish women. He wants to test his theory on his cousin, Rivka, who’s set to enter the Israeli army. She doubts Alex’s theory and suggests he hold her instead, to which he earnestly responds, “Why?” (which elicited some telling guffaws from the male members of the audience). Into their lives comes the Arab Abu Dalo, who claims he once owned their house, and eventually, his angry fiften-year-old daughter, Suha. Before you can say salaam (or is that shalom?), the four are attempting a co-habitation, as Dalo methodically types out Shimon’s history, eventually incorporating the ugly bits he’d rather his son didn’t know.

The House of Many Tongues is clever on several levels; its title plays on the twin puns of oral sex and linguistics, and its writer, Garfinkel, has anthropomorphized the house itself -into the person of actor Fiona Highet. The house “speaks” to various characters without sides -it simply offers suggestions and ideas. House also seems particularly delighted by Dalo’s appreciation of her/its genuine cedar toilet seat, noting that few, if any, ever appreciate such trivialities. Enter a talking camel who tries to woo House, in the form of actor/musician Raoul Bheneja, and a bit about traveling to Paris that is shown via video clip. Camel has his own theories about peace, family, and love.

It’s all very cute, if equally disjointed and disconnected, and some of the best bits involve the scenes between Shimon and Dalo. Actors Howard Jerome and Hrant Alianak, (respectively) give wonderful, heartfelt performances, playing men who’ve been bent and twisted by tragedy and loss, and who only want the best for their children. As Suha, Erin MacKinnon captures all the spitting venom and aching rebellion of a daughter desperately seeking her father’s love and attention, while actor/playwright Daniel Karasik is deeply charming and affecting as the curious, probing son who is relentless in his pursuit of the truth about his past. Bheneja and Highet share a few memorable scenes, their flirtation a kind of dance for the ages, though with Bheneja’s considerable musical gifts, I sort of wished he’d been given more instruments with which to woo. Alas.

The House of Many Tongues is interesting for the ideas it presents in terms of the Middle East -some funny, some profane -but it isn’t the kind of show to bring your Gran to (unless she’s one of those really cool grannies). It also asks a bit of patience, a lot of suspension of disbelief, and an open heart with which to absorb the poetry and flow of Garfinkel’s words and ideas. Director Richard Rose gives a nice soundtrack to accompany while you’re chewing over the possibilities. There’s a lot that could still be done with a work like this -somehow, it doesn’t feel finished -but starting down the road feels like a good first step. It’s true in life, as in … um, oral sex, that the destination somehow isn’t as important as the journey getting there. Right?