I was all set to fire off a commentary on how the Netflix film,The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch was a nice little indicator on how far Germany has come since 1945 in normalizing relations between Jews and non-Jews in Germany. For war generation folk like me, the assumption is it would take at least a hundred years. But here we are, a mere three-quarters of a century after the fall of the Third Reich and the Germans are producing a nice little film about an Orthodox Jewish boy being bullied by his mother into finding a girl (any nice Jewish girl will do, apparently) and carrying on the Jewish tradition. Pretty impressive (still talking to myself) that the Germans can make a comedy - in Yiddish, no less - about a Jew marrying a German shiksa. Then I realize the movie’s not German; it’s Swiss. Before being Netflixified, it appeared as Switzerland's entry for best international feature film in the 2018 Academy Awards under the more expanded title, Wolkenbruch's Wondrous Journey into the Arms of a Shiksa (Wolkenbruchs Wunderliche Reise in die Arme einer Schickse). It is based on Swiss author Thomas Meyer's very successful first novel (2012) with the same title.
OK, back to the drawing board.
So leaving the social commentary behind for a minute - we'll come back to it - how good is the movie? Zurich-born Joel Basman, who plays Motti, is perfect for the role. They found in Basman an experienced actor who speaks Hebrew, apparently the only Swiss actor with this ability, and can handle the part of the story filmed in Israel, and is able to come across as a twenty-something virgin. Basman makes a convincing naif, trying to be a good son while nonetheless chafing under the restrictions imposed on him by his overbearing mother.
The mame, the proverbial mother from hell, is the weak character in the film. Whether it’s the writing or the over-the-top acting by veteran Austrian actress Inge Maux, the character brings the entire plot line down to bad slapstick. She has virtually no lines, in other words, other than those related to getting her son married, no character other than that of an hysteric and a bore. She faints, drives into another car out of excitement when Motti tells her he has a girlfriend, and throws him out of the house when he brings his shiksa girlfriend home to meet her. A sentimentalist might view this character differently (see this video of Maux talking about her role, for example here); it just didn't work for me.
The film has other weaknesses. Motti is sent off to Israel on the advice of the family’s rabbi, because the rabbi thinks Israel is a great source for hot women. When he gets there, the rabbi’s contact is a JewBu and everybody is into meditation, including one of the hotties the rabbi must have had in mind, who takes Motti’s virginity and sends him happily on his way. As one reviewer put it, the whole scene smacks of a tourist pitch for Tel Aviv. Motti has two friends, a male friend and Laura, whose mother is also pushing her into marriage. Motti and Laura hash a plan to say they are engaged just to shut the mothers up and stop the pushing. At some point (you want to say “of course”) the friend and Laura get together, and by the end of the movie the contrived plot twists become tiresome.
The character of the rich widow dying of cancer and still smoking like a chimney adds color to the story but very little to the plot, other than to encourage, with her tarot cards, Motti's independent streak.
The Jewish community in Zurich is comprised largely of Ashkenazi Jews, and about 2000 of Switzerland's 18,000 Jews are Hasidic, so it makes sense that the main characters speak Yiddish much of the time. But when speaking German, why does nobody speak Swiss-German? Are they aiming at a broader audience? What about authenticity? I'm also hesitant (not to say suspicious) about trusting storytellers who are not themselves of the community they are portraying. Good actors can overcome this limitation, of course, but neither the author, Meyer, nor the lead actor, Basman, are religious Jews. Michael Steinman, the director, once lived in an apartment below an Orthodox Jewish family, and served as its "shabbas goy" by turning their lights on and off, but it's hard to escape the question of when are you portraying someone with authenticity and when are you stereotyping and patronizing. Which I think the film risks doing by massaging the Yiddish to increase its entertainment value. Problem is, the best people to ask, the Hasidic Community itself, is unlikely to give you a roaring endorsement of any film featuring a love story about one of their members wanting out. Being patronized and stereotyped are not at the top of the list of their problems.
I don't want to make too much of big deal about the language and the code-switching between German and Yiddish, but I think that since it registers almost as if it were another character in the film, it's worth focusing on for a bit. I found it curious at first how much more German-influenced the Yiddish spoken in the film was than the Yiddish Americans are familiar with who know places like Brooklyn, for example. That mystery was cleared up in an interview in which the director explains that the Yiddish was in fact simplified down to about 500 words with Hebrew and Eastern European words removed, to make it easier for Bauman to manage - he speaks Hebrew, but not Yiddish. And for the German-speaking Swiss audiences as well. I was also struck by the fact that you see pretty much only Orthodox men in street scenes near the house, but a bit of googling revealed that there is indeed an active Hasidic community among the city's 6000 Jews, give or take. Half of the Jews, I understand, are still marrying out. This could account for mame’s hysteria, of course, but I kind of wish the dilemma of the possible slow dissolution of the Jewish community were portrayed with a tad more subtlety.
The ending - don’t want to ruin it for you - is, like the movie generally, kind of cute. But not really.
Ambiguous - but not really.
Like preaching abstinence only to a kid in the U.S. exposed to sex, drugs and rock and roll on all sides, putting all your money on a healthy young man staying shut up in his room, when all the thrills of modern life are just outside his front door is not what you'd call a safe bet. And coming out stories have real drama, usually involving, as they do, choices between family and community on the one hand, and full access to modern life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness on the other. We all can learn a lot from other people's stories, about how they navigate these waters. And every story has its own twists, so total originality is not required. And they don't all have to be told in dead earnest. Comedy is, in fact, a great channel for treating such dilemmas.
But what kind of comedy?
Slapstick is not my shtick.
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