hiskih The first time I tried to watch this film I closed the TV about halfway through because it was too static. This time I decided to stick with it to the end, even though my mind kept wandering all the time - it is simply too low-key and visually drab to keep the interest. Just one example: in the early scene where the heroine's sister collapses in the bathroom, we don't see her at all - the camera is stuck somewhere across the room and we are briefly shown alarmed characters outside the bathroom, then cut to the next scene. I wanted to scream: not this way! They should have shown what happens in the bathroom, with camera moving and close-ups of the actors.Those actors cannot be blamed, they all make you believe that they are the characters they play. Except maybe the leading actress, who is too beautiful for her role - they should have cast someone less glamorous, because she is too much in contrast with the dreariness of everything around her. The major merit of this film is the portrayal of a culture rarely shown in film, but as film-making it badly lacks energy.

chuck-526 Gets _way_ further inside the world of the "Orthodox Jew" than anything I've ever even heard about before. The director and some of the actors really are Orthodox, so the portrayals of both home life and ceremonies that are seldom photographed are truly accurate, not just informed guesses. Yet this is not an "ethnographic record", it's a feature film. And the cinematography is excellent, about as far from an "amateur home movie" as you could possibly get.The glass-half-full description is "a character study" - the glass-half-empty description is "slow boiler". Those prone to getting fidgety will probably be tested beyond their endurance. The psychological nuances aren't trivial - this film is the official submission of Israel to the Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards.The treatment of women looks "old-fashioned" to us: separate rooms, hair covering, emergency health care workers restricted if they might see something they normally wouldn't ...all the horror stories we've heard. This deeper look though shows us the considerable adaptation and flexibility around those rules-- architecture modified so those separate rooms aren't all that separate, a spinster covering her hair on the advice of her rebbe even though she'd never been married so people wouldn't ask so many awkward questions, the wife controlling the money in a rebbe's household, arranging clandestine peeks at potential mates via cellphone. The clumps of women standing in doorways reminded me powerfully of the clumps of servants in those Manor House period piece films like Gosford Park. The blocking of access to females in physical distress reminds me of stories out of Saudi Arabia. And the photo I saw later of a "fashion designer" Muslim hair covering looked so much like what these Orthodox women wear I did a double-take.No easy answers, no "good guys" and "bad guys". There are both pros and cons. Downsides include difficulty finding a marriage partner, great difficulty keeping widows and widowers within the community, birth defects apparently from genetic inbreeding, and almost complete loss of input into the direction of the surrounding society/economy. Upsides include very strong support from both family and friends, and unparalleled community closeness. Where else do non-relatives easily call other adults by their pet names when the going gets rough? And how often do family friends feel free to proffer a word of contrary advice at any time? And although someone's decision to move away is often somewhat painful to others, where else would people literally rather die? Beforehand I was ready to keep my distance and laugh at "those silly people". But watching it I realized the film applies equally well to _all_ communities that are "in the world but not of the world": fundamentalist Christians; even hippies who've resigned themselves to having zero political influence. There's a whole lot of space in the middle on the line with "modern society" on one end and "a cult" on the other end. Although on the surface this film is about a particular world that's about as familiar to me as living on Mars, the deeper story of gaining community but losing interaction with the surrounding society/economy still has me ruminating days later.

Avery Hudson Along with NYFF pick Arat, Fill the Void introduces a new film meme of chaste eroticism, as a young woman creates love to the fierce rustle of silks in prayer.Director Rama Burshtein was born in New York and studied at the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem. In her first feature film, Burshtein tells the ancient story of a man and a woman looking for happiness.With influences ranging from Jane Austen to David Lynch, the screenplay follows the family of Rabbi Aharon (Chaim Sharir) whose elder daughter Esther (Renana Raz) dies giving birth to infant Mordechai. Only the baby can assuage the grief of mother Rivka (Irit Sheleg), younger sister Shira (Hadas Yaron, in a luminous performance) and husband Yochay (Yiftach Klein).In the end, the decision rests with Shira. A movie unlike any other.

donita51 Over the last dozen or so years, no less than seven films have been made about the orthodox religious community in Israel. These films are:Forbidden Love (1999); Kadosh (1999); Bat Kol (Inner Voice) (2002); Ushpizin (2004); My Father, My Lord (2007); The Secrets (2007); Eyes Wide Open (2009).All these films were made by non-religious or at least non-orthodox film makers, and then along came Fill the Void. Its director and scriptwriter, Rama Burshtein, is an orthodox woman who is also a film maker.Which raises the question whether this new film is more authentic than the previous ones, whether it portrays the orthodox community more faithfully. It should be understood that the orthodox communities in Israel are tightly-knit units, abhorring the outside, modern Western way of life which they perceive as decadent, immoral and corruptive. They still dress as did their ancestors in the Shtetl in Eastern Europe centuries ago, talk mostly Yiddish among themselves and of course, inter-marry only within their milieu.Fill the Void is indeed about this latter issue, the question of marriage. The questions raised by the protagonists may seem quaint and even amusing to us, but seem of paramount importance to them, as if no other issues occupy their closed life.This reviewer has no way of assessing the veracity of the facts and can only rely on subjective impressions. The film "rings true", feels true, and the fact that some of the actors come from a religious background adds to the feeling. Viewers might sneer at the seemingly irrelevant questions facing those "strange" people, but the acting convincingly conveys the sentiment that we are indeed dealing with a grave situation.I came out of the theater thinking not about the heroine, blandly played by Hila Feldman, or about the way she handles her private demons and dilemmas, but about the strange, foreign, incomprehensible community living not a mile away from my house in the same city, yet separated from me by an unbridgeable chasm.A disturbing movie.