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Filmmaker's debut is a witty tug
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Dim Sum & Appetizers Seafood Hibachi Station Soups Desserts
" •
-71-Plira,
•
• •
25333 West 12 Mile Road
Southfield (next to Star Theater)
Bar/Bat Mitvah Parties
Birthday, Anniversary, Etc.
248-208-0088
George Robinson
Special to the Jewish News
"Grape Leaves have brought
much neighborhood
satisfaction"
S
everal years ago, a Jewish-
Mexican comedy, My Mexican
Shivah, made a brief splash
on the Jewish film circuit, largely, one
suspects, on the basis of its combination
of sheer novelty (Mexican Jews? Who
knew?), broad farce and the satisfaction
of a semi-happy ending.
Since then, we have been treated to a
series of Jewish-themed comedy-dra-
mas that begin with a funeral and use
the observance of the shivah period as
the jumping-off point for broad comedy.
After you've sat through My Mexican
Shivah, Go for Zucker and even Ronit
Elkabetz's excellent Shivah, you might
think you've done enough Jewish funeral
movies for a lifetime, no pun intended.
Perhaps that is why Nora's Will, a
recent Mexican film by Mariana Chenillo,
slipped through the cracks. And that
is unfortunate, because by shifting the
frame of reference subtly, Chenillo, in her
debut feature film, wrote and directed
one of the best movies of 2009, a mor-
dant study of a 60-year-old man's "com-
ing of age,' growing up and accepting the
reality of family responsibilities.
For the first half of its 92-minute run-
ning time, Nora's Will is the bleakest and
most sardonic of black comedies. Under
the film's credits we see in minute detail
the organizing and setting of a table
for a beautifully appointed dinner. The
sequence ends with a stunning over-
head shot of the final result, an intricate
image of patterns within patterns.
By the film's ending, those patterns,
so reflective of the complexities of a
human community, will be redeemed
by the presence of those people; and the
final images of the film, a series of ever-
more distant shots of a street corner
within a city, will once more subsume
their personal dramas into a larger more
universal whole.
The premise of the film is simple. A
couple of days before Passover, Nora
prepares her house for the holiday then
quietly takes several bottles of medica-
tion and dies in her own bed. Her ex-
husband Jose (Fernando Lujan), who
lives across the street, finds her and sets
in motion the machinery of mourning
MIDDLE-EASTERN CUISINE & RAW JUICES
-Danny Raskin
Nora's Will won seven Ariel Awards
(Mexico's Oscar), including Best
Picture and Best Screenplay.
and burial.
Except, of course, that in the case of a
suicide and a chaotic family constella-
tion, the machinery stubbornly refuses
to run smoothly. And for about 45 min-
utes, the mounting complications are
quietly but joltingly funny in a bleak,
deadpan manner that is fueled by the
remarkable subtlety of Lujan's perfor-
mance as a cynical, weary man who has
suffered with his wife's (or as he keeps
reminding the rabbi, "ex-") 14 suicide
attempts and emotional manipulations.
But in the second half of the film,
with the arrival of their son, his wife
and two little girls, the humor is quite
deliberately drained out of the film.
Slowly, almost agonizingly slowly, the
family tensions are aired and, filially,
exorcised, and Jose finally is redeemed
and redeems, a perfect conclusion for
a film that closes with a seder, with its
promise of redemption.
Nora's Will doesn't have the mariachi
band comedy of My Mexican Shivah.
Instead, it has the shifting light and
shadows of our lives, richly rendered by
a superb craftswoman.
Troy
248-816-2000
2850 West Maple
Southfield
Oak Park
248-968-0008
24700 Greenfield Rd S.E.
248-359-0000
29181 Northwestern Hwy.
at 72 Mile in Franklin Plaza
corner of TO mile rd.
www.grapeleavesrestauranf.corn
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
RESTAURANT
Dine In • Carry-Out • Catering
Dine
Buy One Meal,
Get Second
50% off
I
10% off
I I
II
II
I When you purchase a 2nd of equal or greater value. I I
With purchase of 2 beverages. With coupon only.
I Cannot be combined with any other special offer. I
One coupon per party please. Offer expires 8/ 15/ 10.1 1
Any Catering Order
With coupon only. Cannot he combined
with any other special offer.
One coupon per order.
Et.pires 8/ 15/ 10
I
Open 7 Days A Week • Sunday-Thursday 8-9 • Friday and Saturday 8-10
6215 Orchard Lake Road
(in Sugar Tree Plaza)
248-7374636
F
Nora's Will, in Spanish with English
subtitles, screens 7 p.m. Friday-
Saturday, July 30-31; 2 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 1; 9:30 p.m. Friday
and Saturday, Aug. 6-7; and 4:30
p.m. Sunday, Aug. 8, at the Detroit
Film Theatre in the Detroit Institute
of Arts. $6.50-$7.50. Info:
(313) 833-3237; advance tickets:
(313) 833-4005. www.dia.org/dft.
,IN
July 29 • 2010
49