Even the top drama award at Tribeca can't make My Father, My Lord, David Volach's debut feature, into a crowd pleaser - but then again, it was never meant to. An intimate chamber piece, requiring its audience to interpret the apparently banal images into the intense drama that they refuse to initially reveal, this is the kind of picture that could easily go unnoticed.
The New York jury's decision will at least draw attention to a film that more than deserves it among cinephile quarters. Ideal festival fare, and also one for the arthouse circuit, My Father, My Lord needs careful handling to prevent impatient programmers from turning it down before having a real look.
Shot in Jerusalem and at the nearby Dead Sea, the story takes place in a Jewish Orthodox family. The father (Dayan) is a respected rabbi admired by his students for his erudition, while the mother (Hacohen-Bar) is a devoted spouse who provides just the right kind of environment for him to dedicate every single minute of his life to his studies.
Their small son Menahem (Griff) is loving and affectionate but bewildered as any young boy his age would be at the world around him, trying to make sense of its mysteries, like life and death, divine authority and its application and the existence of a human soul. But the only guidance available to Menahem from his parents is strict obedience to the letter of the law, the same law which his father studies, teaches and practices, day and night.
Minutely observing a world familiar to him in every detail, Volach takes his three characters through a series of seemingly uneventful occurrences, often bordering on potential crises that never quite erupt because of the limitless respect mother and son have for the head of the family.
He follows them through a brief summer holiday trip to the Dead Sea (the film's original title translates as Summer Vacation) leading to devastating tragedy and culminating in a wordless act of rebellion all the more powerful because of the silence it wraps itself in.
At first glance, this could be the classic example of a man immersed in his own personal universe - a scientist or an artist would fit the bill just as well - to such an extent that it distorts his vision of the world and causes him to dismiss anything that is not directly relevant to it, including the people closest to him.
It's not as if he doesn't love them; if asked, he would insist there is nothing in the whole world he prices more. But his calling, of course, comes always first. It is this tragic misconception which lends Volach's film its universality.
However, the particularity of this piece and the source of its considerable power and authority lies in the essence of the calling itself and the precise way it is portrayed, down to the smallest details. The father is a spiritual leader whose entire life is dedicated to the study and interpretation of sacred laws, which are supposed to establish all the essential rules of human conduct. The final tragedy, therefore, denotes not only his personal failure but that of the laws as well.
A profoundly disturbing indictment of religious fanaticism that never raises its voice, nor cares to parade its intentions out in the open, it is ever more painful to watch because of the great sympathy it displays to all the characters here.
Volach, who knows exactly not only what he is talking about but also how this particular world looks, never puts his foot wrong. His subdued restraint keeps the emotions smoldering under the surface but never allows them to break out: he never gives in to the temptation of excessive explicitness and militant stances, his film displaying the depth that others, like Amos Gitai's Kadosh, dealing with similar subjects, didn't always possess.
Possibly less of a visual treat than The Return - another picture with which it shares certain features yet as introvert and secretive in nature as Zvyagintsev's film - My Father, My Lord is valiantly supported by a splendid cast.
Assi Dayan offers probably the finest performance of his career as the rabbi torn between faith and humanity, while Sharon Hacohen-Bar is remarkable as the silent wife who lovingly endures her fate until she cannot stand it any more. Ilan Griff and his simple, unaffected and sincere Menachem is the pivotal point of the drama.
Technical credits are better than satisfactory and the soundtrack, using existing modern pieces of music, is not only suitable but at times heartbreaking.
Production company
Golden Cinema Productions
Producers
Eyal Shiray
Screenplay
David Volach
Cinematography
Boaz Yaakov
Editor
Haim Tabeckman
Production design
Yoav Sinai
Main cast
Assi Dayan
Sharon Hacohen-Bar
Ilan Griff
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