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ROCHELLE KRICH
Special to the Jewish News

n edgy moodiness pervades
Kadosh, Israeli film-
maker Amos Gitai's
jaundiced examina-
tion of haredi, or fervently
Orthodox, women oppressed by reli-
gious extremism in Jerusalem. There is
little nuance in this uneven film or in
Gitai's intentions: to expose the fanati-
cism of the haredi community and the
misogyny inherent in their beliefs.

A

daughters in the name of Divine law.
But are the images valid?
Art attempts to underscore mes-
sage. Though shot in color, the film is
remarkably colorless, much like,
one is led to assume, the
drab lives of the haredi com-
munity. The music grates.
Jangling, whiningly insistent chords
with traces of shtetl instrumentation
foreshadow catastrophe. The paucity
and starkness of the locations — the
box-like synagogue; the cramped, dark
bedrooms; the narrow, curved streets

A Jaundiced Lens

"Kadosh" presents a flawed, amateurish
view of the haredi community.

There are, however, inaccuracies and
— suggest the meanness of a life
misinformation.
hemmed in by restrictions. There is no
The film's title, which in Hebrew
indulgence here, no beautiful furnish-
means sacred, is heavily
ings or objects unless they are sacra-
ironic. In the opening
mental, and rows and
scene, Meir, a Torah schol- Above: Yael Abecassis,
rows of holy texts.
ar, recites numerous bless- left, as Rivka, with
Against this back-
ings to invest his every act Yoram Hattab as Meir, ground, Gitai presents
in Amos Gitais
with the sacred and
the usual haredi stereo-
"Kadosh," the first
thanks God for not hav-
types:
the autocratic
Israeli movie in 25 years
ing made him a woman.
father
(he is a rabbi and a
to be included in the
What follows is image
bully,
too)
intent on mar-
main competition at the
after jarring image of the
rying
off
his
resisting
Cannes Film Festival.
denigration haredi men
daughter; the cowed wife
inflict on their wives and
(she runs the mikva, the
ritual bath); the boorish suitor who
Rochelle Krich is an award-winning Los substitutes zealousness for intellect;
Angeles mystery writer, whose latest book,
and not one, but two beautiful
"Dead Air," was just released by Avon
daughters, Rivka and Malka. Each is
Books. The Orthodox novelist was profiled
trapped by her traditional role and
in last week's Jewish News. She appears at
prevented from achieving happiness
Adat Shalom's donor day event on Mayo
and self-fulfillment.
This review previously appeared in the
After 10 years of a childless mar-
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles.
riage, Rivka and Meir, still in love,

share tender looks and long, brooding
silences but are not intimate. Sex for
mere pleasure, Meir informs her, is
forbidden. Rivka is overwhelmed by
the shame of her barrenness. Her
mother blames her. Her father com-
mands Meir to obey the law and take
another wife.
A childless marriage is pointless, a
barren woman, useless. When Meir
argues that Abraham did not abandon
Sarah, the father-in-law counters that
children are the haredim's weapon to
vanquish the nonreligious.
Malka, too, pays a heavy price. In
love with an ex-haredi-turned-pop-
singer, she flirts with rebellion but
obeys her father and marries Yossef.
The wedding is a rushed, joyless
event. Even the mother is grim: she
knows the wedding canopy promises
no happiness.
Later the bride weeps as she lops off
her long hair (her sister's hair remains
inexplicably unshorn). She lies stoical-
ly on the Spartan marital bed and
screams when Yossef, who prefaces his
advances with prayers, quickly and
brutally consummates their vows.
This is a rape, not a marriage, and it
sets the stage for the beating Yossef
inflicts when he suspects Malka of
infidelity.
Meir is spineless, not man enough
to de& his father-in-law (perhaps not
man enough to father a child, a doc-
tor suggests to Rivka). He takes
another wife, and his mother-in-law,
bending to her husband's will, must
supervise the spiritual cleansing of the
woman who will take her banished
daughter's place. Rivka retreats into an
island of despair and silence. Relief,
Gitai ultimately shows, is possible
only through escape of one form or
another.
These disturbing images of the
helplessness of women, their sub-
servience and victimization, are poten-
tially powerful, but their power is
diminished by the film's flaws.
As art, the movie is bogged down
by a jagged, amateurish quality and
stretches of tedious silence, by puzzling
gaps in the narrative, unanswered
questions and an improbably melodra-
matic ending. As social commentary, it
is suspect and filled with inaccuracies.
Just as the, rooms in the film are delib-
erately narrow, so is the lens through
which Gitai tells his story. That is my
problem with Kadosh.
The wedding night scene is a dis-
torted caricature. Torah law forbids
forced sex or abuse; it encourages lov-

JAUNDICED LENS on page 106

Meital Barda, left, as Malka, with
Sami Hori as Yaakov, in "Kadosh.

SngO
"Kadosh" director Amos
Gitai is no stranger to
controversy.

NAOMI PFEFFERMAN
Special to the Jewish News

11110 enowned Israeli director
11Amos Gitai acknowledges
that his film Kadosh raises ire in
segments of the observant com-
munity. "It's critical of certain ele-
ments of Jewish tradition that I
consider to be reactionary," says
the filmmaker, whose movie tells
of two oppressed Orthodox
women in Jerusalem's Mea
Shearim. But its not a total
denial. It's precise."
Specifically, the film explores
what Gitai calls the "great contra-
diction" of all the world's great
monotheistic religions: the subju-
gation of women. And no he's
not sorry that Kadosh doesn't
offer more diverse portraits of
observant women, "I don't think
art is about balance," he says, fix-
ing a reporter with laser-like
brown eyes during an interview
in Los Angeles. "Art cannot be
politically negotiated."
Gitai, one of Israel's few inter-
nationally acclaimed filmmakers,
has paid for his vision. Officials of
the Quality Film Encouragement
Fund in Israel refused to support
the provocative movie at every
level of production, always for
"artistic reasons," he says. They
recanted and granted Gitai
$50,000 to complete his film only
when Kadosh became the first
Israeli movie in 25 years to be
included in the main competition
at Cannes, Gitai says.

STRONG OPINIONS on page 107

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