By Norman Greene
SAN DIEGO — It only takes a momentary impulse, a quick decision or a chance meeting to change–or ruin–a person’s life. This could well be the premise of Bride Flight, the 21st Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival movie chosen this year to honor the memory of Marla Bennett who made the choice to have lunch and was murdered in the Hebrew University cafeteria almost nine years ago.
In no other way are the intertwined stories of three young women seeking new lives in Post War II New Zealand ( 1953) connected to Bennett. The characters in this film all make a conscious decision that alters their lives and the lives of those associated with them over a 50 year period.
Bride Flight offers a compelling, if somewhat intricate, story of love and loss made more complicated by the way the story is told. The film does not offer chronological action. Basically the viewer must piece together the tale through a series of flashbacks that help to reveal four different life stories. The abrupt editing and juxtaposition of non-sequential flashbacks is a bit challenging to follow and makes the plot more complicated than is necessary.
Only one of the women is of Jewish parentage. Seemingly, the fact of her religion plays a very small part of her story until the very end of the film when it is more fully revealed. This revelation seemed almost an afterthought, as if offered as a rationalization for the film to be included in the Festival. It was perhaps the least convincing part of an otherwise intriguing story.
All the characters are well enacted by a cast unknown to American audiences. In their youths, they are all attractive and well defined. The elder versions of the women are easily confused as the audience struggles to identify them with their younger selves. This is made even more difficult by the constant changes in the time settings for each flashback/flash forward.
Filmed against the lush background of the New Zealand landscape, Bride Flight offers a window into the way these people lived their lives. There is passion, deception, fidelity, cruelty, disappointment and achievement. By movie’s end, it becomes clear how the past, present and future were all linked in the lives of these three mail-order brides.
Bride Flight, with its vivid adult content, is well worth the wait. It may serve as a reminder to all of us of the danger of impulsive acts. The movie will be shown three times during the San Diego Jewish Film Festival: at 10 a.m., Tuesday, Feb. 15, at the Lawrence Family JCC; at 7:30 p.m, Thursday, Feb. 17, at the Carlsbad Village Theatgre, and at 3:30 p.m., Feb 20, at the Clairemont Reading 14.
The movie has a running time of two hours and 10 minutes. It was filmed in Dutch and bits of English with subtitles. Bride Flight has won a number of “Best” film awards from various film festivals across the nation.
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Greene is a freelance writer based in San Diego