The Stronghold, Sat. May 31, 8 p.m., Berney Theatre,
Feature | Israel | 2024 | Director: Lior Chefetz Hebrew w/Eng subtitles | 113 minutes
The Stronghold, which is based on a true story, is a powerful and riveting drama made in 2023, for the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. This epic war film examines whether human life is more important than national pride. This film focuses on a desolate outpost in Sinai in 1973, which withstands a terrible onslaught by the Egyptian army, with many Israeli soldiers being killed and many others wounded. I highly recommend this excellent film.
Dr. Nahum Werbin, who is played by veteran Israeli actor Michal Aloni, is a non-religious reserve combat medic fresh out of medical school from Tel-Aviv who expects to return to his pregnant wife shortly. But that is not his fate, as he tends to many wounded. As medical supplies run short, it becomes increasingly clear over the week that the Israeli army, which is facing an Egyptian blockade and siege is unable to rescue the isolated outpost.
Dr. Werbin tried to convince fellow soldiers at the outpost to surrender to the Egyptians under the supervision of the Red Cross, against the wishes of the outpost’s commander, Shlomo, the son of a Holocaust survivor who was in Auschwitz. Shlomo and other soldiers can not imagine surrendering to the enemy, and fear if they do they will all be slaughtered. Werbin believes the only way to save the lives of the 21 wounded is to surrender. As the situation becomes more desperate, the defense minister Moshe Dayan says the outpost should surrender, but then later changes his mind and leaves the decision up to Shlomo, the outpost’s commander.
In the 1973 war the Israeli military had to defend against attacks on two fronts, amid controversy over charges that prime minister Golda Meir and defense minister Moshe Dayan ignored clear warnings of impending war.
An inquiry into the government’s behavior followed the war. For years, the 1973 war was rarely depicted on screen in Israel, due to the trauma that had overtaken the nation.
Pink Lady, Wed. June 4, & p.m. Berney Theatre
Narrative | Israel | 2024 | Director: Nir Bergman | Hebrew w/Eng subtitles 106 minutes
Nir Bergman’s Pink Lady is an excellent Israeli movie,
that examines the issue of homosexuality in the ultra-orthodox community. It tells a complex, moving story of an untra-orthodox couple in Jerusalem, with three children who are struggling with the fact that the husband is gay. The wife Bati becomes aware of this when photos of her husband Lazer with another young man are delivered under her doorstep, by thugs who are blackmailing him with the fact he is gay.
Lazer goes to a Rabbi who tries to teach him to not act on his impulses and to try to become sexually attracted to his wife. The film examines the ultra-orthodox world, and shows how the husband wants to keep the family together, such that the children will not be the subject of gossip for the entire community. But Bati has to decide whether she can continue to be in the relationship, knowing her husband is gay. The acting in this film is well done.
This is a quality, perceptive and serious film. The screenplay is by Mindi Ehrlich, who was raised within Jerusalem’s Orthodox community
Bad Shabbos- Saturday, May 24, 8 p.m., Berney Theatre
Comedy | USA | 2024 | Director: Daniel Robbins | English | 84 minutes
There are some very humorous moments in “Bad Shabbos,” a film about what happens at a family Shabbat dinner when a younger pill popping brother Adam, plays a prank that results in his sister’s boyfriend’s death. Family members note with dark sarcasm that she has wanted to break up with the dead man anyway.
This accidental death occurs while a non-Jewish fiancé of the older brother David is present in his parent’s apartment in New York, where the Shabbat dinner takes place. The church going parents of David’s fiancée, Meg, who is taking conversion classes, are not too pleased about their daughter marrying a Jewish man and as a sign of this the father refuses to wear at a kippa at the table. (“I don’t like little hats,” he says). He and his wife arrive while Davis’s family is hatching a plan to get rid of the dead body in the bathroom. Humorous antics follow when Meg’s father asks where the bathroom is.
The movie is unique, the comedy is dark, with the plot twisting and turning until the doorman arrives to help and to save the day. The film, directed by Daniel Robbins and written by Robbins and Zack Wiener, is good light-hearted fun.
The film shows that all members of the family, who often do not get along, put aside their differences to come together to celebrate ‘Shabbos’ every Friday night. The title is a play on the words “Gut Shabbos” which is the greeting Ashkenazi Jews say to each other as the Sabbath begins.
What could go wrong? What if the lead’s Klonopin popping younger brother (Theo Taplitz) plays a prank which results in his sister’s boyfriend’s death? How about the Black doorman (played by Method Man who steals the movie) savinbefore g the day.
Directed by Daniel Robbins and written by Robbins and Zack Wiener, the film raises the stakes on what could possibly go wrong at a Sabbath dinner where the male lead (Jon Bass) brings his studying-to-convert fiancée (Morgan Leathers) to his parents’ home for a dinner to meet her Wisconsin church-going parents who are not happy about their daughter abandoning their religion to become Jewish.
