SNEAK PEEKS
Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival Schedule 2005
April 10 — April 21, 2005
from page 42
here for his film Delbaran, is a rigor-
ously disciplined filmmaker whose
work alternates brutally jagged mon-
tage sequences with deliberately paced
long takes.
Already a controversial figure in
Iran, with Abjad he offers a frontal
assault on the revolutionary govern-
ment, the bludgeoning censorship of
the fundamentalist schools and the
lazy compliance of ordinary citizens.
The protagonist of the film, Emkan
(a stunning performance by newcom-
er Mehdi Morady), is a young man
who is desperately seeking a form of
self-expression. He tries poetry, draw-
ing, music and calligraphy, much to
the dismay of his harshly practical
father.
He also falls in love with a beautiful
classmate (Mina Molania), who turns
out to be Jewish. Her family owns a
local movie house, and it is there that
Emkan discovers his true calling.
Abjad is a bleakly unsentimental
portrait of adolescence in a time of
revolution, but its sinuous editing
rhythms should keep viewers riveted,
and its depiction of Jewish life in pre-
revolutionary Iran is unique.
Mbjad," in Farsi with English subtitles
The Fight
Max Schmeling's death in February
makes Barak Goodman's detailed re-
examination of Schmeling's two fights
with Joe Louis particularly apposite
(especially here in Louis' hometown).
The Fight is a typical PBS history
documentary. If you have watched
PBS's The American Experience, you
will quickly recognize the model. It's
the Ken Burns paradigm writ small,
and Goodman follows the model
astutely.
With Shaquille O'Neal, Tiger
Woods and dozens of other African-
American athletes omnipresent in
United Artists Theatres
14 Mile & Haggerty Roads - Commerce Township
Movie Title
Mame loshn, Kinder loshn
and A Cantor on Trial
Heir to an Execution
Watermarks
A Journey of the Spirit
(Gottlieb Prize winner and
Main Attraction)
Backseat Bingo and Shalom
Ireland and The Postwoman
A Silence of the Sirens
The Rashevski's Tango
Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi
Complaints of a Dutiful
Daughter and Men on
Wheels
Isn't This a Time!
Emma Goldman: An
Exceedingly Dangerous
Woman
Journey to Jerusalem
The Hebrew Hammer
Abjad
Prisoner of Paradise
Suzie Gold
The Mad Baker and Gloomy
Sunday
SPECIAL EVENT:
Play Ball! Jews in Baseball
Movies -
The Fight
Facing Windows
Broken Wings
Wondrous Oblivion
Confrontation at Concordia
and Chosen People
Miss Entebbe
The Tollbooth
Imaginary Witness
A Journey of the Spirit (.2nd
showing)
Unlikely Heroes
Professional Revolutionary
A Little Bit Different and
Mixed Blessings
Le Grand Role
-
"The Fight": Joe Louis and Max
Schmeling
commercials, it is hard for us to cast
our thoughts back to a time when
African-Americans of any profession
were essentially invisible to white soci-
ety. In fact, that time wasn't so long
ago, a fact of which The Fight makes
surprisingly little.
Joe Louis' impact on American soci-
ety, particularly in the wake of his
explosive first-round defeat of
Schmeling in their 1938 rematch, was
astonishing and never to be repeated.
Louis, abetted by Jesse Owens' tri-
umph in the 1936 Olympics, pushed
open doors that could never be shut
again.
Unfortunately, although Goodman
recognizes the resonance of the event,
and has ai,vide range of voices to con-
textualize it, The Fight plods along at
the pace of an aging heavyweight. The
film is at once too detailed, tracing
the parallel rises of its protagonists
from poverty to success, yet not
detailed enough, stinting on the larger
social impact of Louis' rise.
But there are moments of sheer
delight, like Fred Morton recalling
hearing the Louis victory over the
radio in Vienna, listening with his
father to the first seeming defeat of
the rising tide of Nazism, giving this
isolated Jewish family a moment of
hope. Or the quick brushstrokes with
which Goodman delineates Joe
Jacobs, Schmeling's smart-alecky New
York Jewish manager.
And there is the stunning two min-
utes of the second fight, with Louis
hammering Schmeling mercilessly,
leaving the German fighter hanging
against the ropes before finishing him
in the middle of the Yankee Stadium
ring.
SNEAK PEEKS AND
FILM FESTIVAL SCHEDULE
on page 44
-
Date
Sunday, April 10
Time
12:30 p.m.
Sunday, April 10
Sunday, April 10
Sunday, April 10
3 p.m.
5 p.m.
8 p.m.
Monday, April 11
2 p.m.
Monday, April 11
Monday, April 11
Tuesday, April 12
Tuesday, April 12
5 p.m.
8 p.m.
2 p.m.
5 p.m.
Tuesday, April 12
Wednesday, April 13
8 p.m.
2 p.m.
Wednesday, April 13
Wednesday, April 13
Thursday, April 14
Thursday, April 14
Thursday, April 14
Saturday, April 16
5 p.m.
8 p.m.
2 p.m.
5 p.m.
8 p.m.
9:45 p.m.
Sunday, April 17
10 a.m.
Sunday, April 17
Sunday, April 17
Sunday, April 17
Sunday, April 17
Monday, April 18
12:30 p.m.
3 p.m.
5 p.m.
8 p.m.
2 p.m.
Monday, April 18
Monday, April 18
Tuesday, April 19
Tuesday, April 19
5 p.m.
8 p.m.
2 p.m.
5 p.m.
Tuesday, April 19
Wednesday, April 20
Wednesday, April 20
8 p.m.
2 p.m.
5 p.m.
Wednesday, April 20
8 p.m.
Michigan Theater
603 E. Liberty Street - Ann Arbor
A Journey of the Spirit
Emma Goldman: An
Exceedingly Dangerous
Woman
The Hebrew Hammer
Le Grand Role
Confrontation at Concordia
and Chosen People
Isn't This a Time!
Miss Entebbe
Heir to an Execution
Gloomy Sunday
Sunday, April 17
Monday, April 18
8 p.m.
2 p.m.
Monday, April 18
Monday, April 18
Tuesday, April 19
5 p.m.
8 p.m.
2 p.m.
Tuesday, April 19
Tuesday, April 19
Wednesday, April 20
Wednesday, April 20
5 p.m.
8 p.m.
2 p.m.
5 p.m.
.