By Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO — Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem presents a Kafkaesque vision of the divorce process for Jewish women in Israel. Viviane, soulfully played by the film’s co-director Ronit Elkabetz, seeks to get out of an unhappy marriage, but her husband Elisha, played by the Armenian actor Simon Abkarian, won’t consent to her leaving him. To force him to do so, Viviane must bring her case to a Beit Din comprised of three Orthodox rabbis because family law in administered by religious courts in Israel.
Since Jewish law privileges the husband’s right to refuse to grant his wife a get, a scroll releasing her from their wedding vows, Simon does everything he can do to postpone a settlement from simply not showing up to the trial and then hauling in relatives and neighbors to attest to what a model husband he had been. The rabbis initially strive to keep the marriage intact by ordering Viviane to return home and reconcile with Simon. Consequently, the trial drags on for years with no resolution. When the rabbis realize how stubborn Simon is, they try to pressure him by sending him to short terms in jail, but the one measure they won’t take is to compel him to divorce Viviane.
All of the exchanges take place in a small drab courtroom or in a claustrophobic waiting room. The camera dwells on Viviane’s grimaces, Simon’s haughty demeanor, and the testimonies that typically attempt to shore up what is patently a crumbling marriage. The combination of the visual and verbal depictions of emotional and spatial confinement reinforces the impression of a system that has little flexibility to help Viviane extricate herself from her marriage. The click of computer keys struck by the court reporter is the only semblance of modernity in this proceeding.
The acting, dialogue, editing, and cinematography are superb. Although the movie stands alone, it should be noted that it is the culminating film in a trilogy exploring the marital tensions between Viviane and Simon and the intrusive role of their extended families to patch things up which began with To Take a Wife (2004) and continued in Shiva aka Seven Days (2008).
Gett won this year’s Ophir for best Israeli feature film and earned a Golden Globe nomination for best foreign language film. In a previous column, I selected it as one of the top ten Jewish films of 2014. Try to get to see it while it is playing at the Landmark La Jolla Village.
Baron is a professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. He may be contacted at lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com