Ten best Jewish movies of 2014

By Laurie Baron

Laurie Baron
Laurie Baron

SAN DIEGO─ It’s that time of year again when movie reviewers prepare their lists of the ten best films they’ve seen over the past twelve months.  I hesitate doing this knowing there are many Jewish films I won’t see until their local premieres at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

DOCUMENTARIES:

Finding Vivian Maier, Directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel (USA).           In 2007 director John Maloof purchased a cache of undeveloped film for a pittance.  Impressed by the exquisite photographs it yielded, he embarked on an inquiry into the enigmatic French nanny who took the pictures.  Although Vivian was not Jewish, her camera captured everyday moments in the lives of the Jewish families she worked for the Chicago suburb of Highland Park.  His film has netted several awards at important film festivals

The Green Prince, Directed by Nadav Schirman (Israel). Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.  The son of one of the founders of Hamas is recruited as an informer for the Shin Bet.  As he and his handler develop a relationship of trust, the latter eventually will be dismissed from the agency for helping his valuable asset.  Interviews of the two men are intercut with CGI reenactments of the events they describe. The Green Prince received the Sundance award for best world cinema documentary.   

The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz. Directed by Brian Knappenberger (USA).  Aaron Swartz was an internet prodigy with a passion for democratizing the sharing of information.  He created Reddit and a precursor to Wikipedia.  When he downloaded files from MIT’s website for JSTOR, the Department of Justice zealously prosecuted him for piracy.  Facing a lengthy prison sentence, he committed suicide.  It is a fitting tribute to him that this documentary can be streamed from YouTube.

Theodor Bikel: In the Shoes of Sholom Aleichem, Directed by John Lollos (USA).  Theodor Bikel performing Sholom Aleichem: what more do I need to say?  It’s beshert.  The San Diego Jewish Film Festival will screen this documentary about two complementary creative Jewish souls on February 5th and 15th.

Watchers of the Sky. Directed by Edet Belzberg (USA).  Inspired by Samantha Power’s A Problem from Hell, Watchers of the Sky profiles Raphael Lemkin, the lawyer who coined the term genocide and lobbied tirelessly for the passage of the UN Genocide Convention, and other prominent figures who have combated genocide like Power herself, Luis Moreno Ocampo, Benjamin Ferencz, and Emmanuel Uwurukundo.  It won the best documentary awards from the Jerusalem Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival.     

FEATURE FILMS:

Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem.  Directed by Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz (Israel). Viviane seeks a divorce from her domineering Orthodox spouse Alisha, but he refuses to grant it.  The movie focuses on her pleading her case to a rabbinical court whose strict adherence to Jewish law favors Alisha the husband.  Powerful acting and dialogue earned Gett the Ophir for best Israeli film and a nomination for the Golden Globe for the Best Foreign Language Film.  It is Israel’s official Oscar entry in that category.

Ida. Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski (Poland).  On the verge of taking her final vows to become a nun, Ida learns from her estranged aunt that her parents were Jewish.  This revelation commences a search by the two to discover how Ida’s parents died.  The movie belongs to a cycle of recent Polish films recalling the tragedy of Polish Jewry during World War Two.  The stunning black and white cinematography harkens back to the classics of European postwar cinema.  Ida has been nominated for the Golden Globe for the Best Foreign Language Film and should garner a nomination for an Oscar in the same category.

The Immigrant. Directed by James Gray (USA).  Set in 1921 this movie traces the story of a Polish woman from her arrival at Ellis Island to her life as a prostitute for a Jewish man.  He promises her that with his political pull and her earnings, he can secure the release of her sister from Ellis Island who remained under quarantine there with tuberculosis.  The atmospheric recreation of the seamy side of the immigrant experience and the expressive performance by Marion Cotillard as Ewa have won several film critic and festival awards for Gray and Cotillard.

Obvious Child. Directed by Gillian Robespierre (USA). Jenny Slate stars as an off-color comedian who wears her Jewishness and faltering love life on her sleeve.  When she becomes pregnant by a Gentile man she meets on the rebound, she decides to have an abortion.  What this decision means to her, him, and her family is explored with humor and sensitivity.  The National Board of Review conferred its award for best directorial debut on Robespierre.  Slate won the award for best comedic actress from the Women Critics Film Circle.

Zero Motivation.  Directed by Talya Lavie (Israel). This comedy revolves around Israeli women serving in a clerical division of the IDF.  Their relationships to each other, the men at the army base, and the bureaucratic monotony of their duties make this comedy an Israeli equivalent of MASH.  Audiences offended by its irreverence for the IDF should rent its male predecessor Halfon Hill Doesn’t Answer (1976).   Zero Motivation won six Israeli Ophirs and the Tribeca Film Festival’s Nora Ephron and best narrative feature film awards.  It opens for a week-long run on January 15th at the Ken Cinema.

Baron is a professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University.  He may be contacted at lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com