Fill the Void, Directed by Rama Burshtein (Israel: 2012)
By Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO — When ultra-Orthodox Jews are the focus of films, they usually wrestle with conflicts revolving around individual secular freedoms versus communal religious obligations. In The Chosen (1981) Reuven and his father, acculturated conservative Jews, introduce Danny, the heir to his father as a Hasidic rebbe, to art, literature, film, and science. While Reuven appreciates the solidarity and spirituality exhibited by the Hasidim, he resents how Danny’s father curbs the intellectual, political, and romantic options of his son and congregants. Reuven decides to become a rabbi; whereas Danny sheds his traditional garb and shears his facial hair to study psychology. Even in films like Ushpizhin (2004) and Arranged (2007) that celebrate Orthodox customs and piety, the outside world hovers like a threat―the criminal guests in the former―or an alternative―the temptation to avoid a brokered marriage in the latter.
Rama Burshtein’s Fill the Void does not pose those stark choices. The diversions of modernity are like the rock music blaring from the street which momentarily intrudes into the lead family’s apartment. It is easily silenced by shutting the windows. Shira played by Hadas Yaron, who won the Venice Film Festival’s award for best actress, faces challenges which emanate from within her community and not from without. She had been looking forward to having her engagement arranged with a young man her age until her sister Esther (Renana Raz) suddenly died in childbirth. Confronted by the prospect that her son-in-law Yochay (Yiftach Klein) might wed a Jewish woman from Belgium and move there, Shira’s mother Rivka (Irit Sheleg) wants Shira to get betrothed to Yochay. To further complicate matters, Aunt Hanna (Razia Israeli) believes Shira should go ahead with her original plan and recommends that Frieda, Esther’s best friend, should become Yochay’s wife.
Rivka, Yochay, and Hanna express their preferences to Shira, but also make it equally clear that she is not being coerced into marrying Yochay. Only eighteen years old, Shira anticipated the joy of sharing matrimony and having children with a younger man who would be experiencing both for the first time as well. She initially is repelled by the thought of loving her sister’s husband. Like Hanna, She also thinks that the Frieda should become Yochay’s bride.
Nevertheless, she weights her options carefully. The tense “dates: between Yochay and Shira bluntly confront her concerns. Yet she also has cared for Yochay’s baby and gradually recognizes that her mother’s suggestion may be the wisest resolution of the dilemma. Unlike most of her cinematic counterparts, Shira eventually heeds her pragmatic inclinations and overcomes her romantic reservations.
What makes Shira’s ultimate decision credible is that it evolves organically out of the richly textured Ultra-Orthodox milieu which Burshtein creates. With the exception of a few exterior shots, most of the film takes place inside cramped rooms and sanctuaries which are segregated on the basis of gender. While this elicits a sense of confinement, it also engenders an impression of intimacy since the people inhabiting the spaces are filmed in close-ups and bathed in soft light and colors. Similarly, the natural performances of the cast members humanize their characters rather than stereotyping them. Recurring scenes of appeals to the rabbi for advice and financial assistance, and, the observance of Holy Days and rituals provide the backdrop for the plotline and enhance its authenticity.
Fill the Void garnered seven Israeli Ophirs including the best picture award and has achieved critical success internationally. After watching the film, I reflected upon the ultra-Orthodox limits placed on personal freedom in general, and women’s choices in particular. While viewing it, however, I saw it through Shira’s eyes. It is the sign of a great movie that you can empathize with a character’s choice even when you disagree with it.
Fill the Void opens at the La Jolla Village Landmark Theatre on June 7th.
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Lawrence Baron recently retired from being the Nasatir Professor of Modern Jewish History at San Diego State University. He is the author of Projecting the Holocaust into the Present: The Changing Focus of Contemporary Holocaust Cinema (Rowman and Littlefield: 2005) and editor of The Modern Jewish Experience in World Cinema (Brandeis University Press: 2011). He may be contacted at lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com