Matchmaker, directed by Avi Nesher, Hebrew with Engl.ish subtitles, 112 minutes.
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — Yankale the Matchmaker (Adir Miller) is a Holocaust survivor who can’t persuade Clara (Maya Dagan), who was even more scarred by the Shoah than he, to marry him. But that doesn’t discourage him from offering his matchmaking services in other difficult cases, including Meir (Dror Keren), who is short and shy, and Sylvie (Bat-El Papura) who is a beautiful dwarf. Meir, however, becomes smitten with Clara and increasingly suspicious of Yankale, who earns his money from such illegal activities as smuggling and helping Clara to run a gambling house in a seedy neighborhood of Haifa.
Juxtaposed against this story is a coming-of-age tale about Arik (Tuval Shafir), a teenage boy who becomes a salesman and investigator for Yankale’s matchmaking services, and an Israeli-American girl Tamara (Neta Porat) who spends a summer at his apartment house. Disillusioned by her father’s philandering, she constantly “acts out,” drawing Arik into her rebelliousness.
The San Diego Jewish Film Festival will present this film twice at the Clairemont Reading 14Theatres at 4665 Clairemont Drive in San Diego. The showings will be at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 17, and at 8:15 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 19.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World