Search This Blog

Saturday, March 9, 2019

Disobedience (2017)

This movie has a distinguished background.  It is based on a book by Naomi Alderman, the woman who wrote the highly acclaimed book The Power in 2018.  She is on her way to being a power house feminist author (interestingly, her mentor is Margaret Atwood, who has been active in supporting women authors). The director is Sebastian Lelio, who's film A Fantastic Woman won the 2018 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.  So a potent combination.
The film opens with the rabbi Rav Krushka giving a sermon about free will. He speaks of angels, beasts, and Adam and Eve. He says, fearsomely, that humans are "free to choose." Then he drops dead.
The back story is that he excommunicated his daughter after she was caught kissing one of her best friends, a young woman.  She left London, went to America and became a modestly successful photographer.  She returns for his funeral and finds that the object of her youthful desires has married their other childhood friend, now a devout holy man in the Orthodox community.  It is a well told story about tradition and who you are underneath and the conflict between the two.

No comments:

Post a Comment