Upwards of one million Polish citizens were deported to Siberia by the Soviet Union following its invasion of eastern Poland more than 80 years ago. But in an astonishing twist of fate, some 20,0000 of these refugees left Siberia shortly afterward and migrated to six African countries, bringing a chunk of Poland in their baggage. […]
Matt Ratner’s comedy, Standing Up, Falling Down, often plays out like a doom-laden drama. Wisecracks abound because the central character is a young Jewish standup comedian trying to break into the limelight. Since he’s having trouble carving out a viable career in a crowded and competitive field, levity inevitably gives way to darker moments. The […]
Far from being original, Jojo Rabbit, which won this year’s Academy Award for best adapted screenplay, is the latest film in the past seven decades to poke fun at Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Lest it be forgotten, Nazi Germany was satirized by Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator, Ernst Lubitsch in To Be […]
Barnabas Toth’s richly-textured Hungarian-language feature film, Those Who Remained, echoes with the grief and pain of the Holocaust in Hungary, where more than 400,000 Jews were murdered during Nazi Germany’s occupation. Two of the traumatized survivors, Aladad (Aldo) Korner and Klara (Sunny) Wiener, meet by chance and provide each other with warmth, empathy, comfort and […]
Marco Belloccio’s fast-paced crime drama, The Traitor, hums with raw energy. Focusing on Tommaso Buscetta (Pierfrancesco Favino), a top-ranking Cosa Nostra mobster who turned on his colleagues in a series of sensational trials in Italy in the 1980s and 1990s, it is reminiscent of some of the finest movies of its genre. Richly steeped in Italianate […]
Marcus Rosenmuller’s absorbing drama, The Keeper, based on a real story, is framed by two related scenes early in the movie — a dance party in the British town of St. Helen’s interrupted by a German air raid in 1944, and a group of German soldiers captured on home ground by Allied forces in 1945. […]
Despite her status as one of America’s greatest movie critics, Pauline Kael was regarded as a persona non-grata by certain Hollywood movers and shakers. Diverging from mainstream tastes, she would pan popularly acclaimed films such as The Sound of Music, Lawrence of Arabia and West Side Story, thereby enraging high-powered film executives, who barred her from […]
David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first premier, once joked that Golda Meir was “the only man” in his cabinet. Hard-working, persistent and outspoken, Golda was one tough lady who commanded respect. The only Israeli woman ever to be prime minister, she had sharp elbows and could not be pushed around. Forty one years after her death at […]
The central Polish city of Lodz was a thriving hub of Poland’s Jewish community before the Holocaust. Its story is told, in part at least, through one of its former residents, Lilka Elbaum, who lived in postwar Lodz until 1968. What most reminds her of her birthplace is an unremarkable still life painting that adorned […]
Yuval Adler’s spy thriller, The Operative, turns on Israel’s shadow war with Iran, its strongest and most resourceful enemy. Now available on the Netflix streaming service, it stars Diane Kruger as a Mossad agent who’s sent to Tehran to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program. An Israeli-German co-production, this somber film unfolds in Germany, Israel and Iran in […]