Sparkling ‘Tickle’ Spotlights Trio of Klezmer Musicians

“A Tickle in the Heart” is a completely charming documentary about old men and young music, or at least music that sounds young. For though the melodies of klezmer are considerably older than even the three Epstein brothers, in their hands it takes on the kind of vivid, electric life that might raise the dead if the need arose.

The traditional celebratory music of Eastern European Jews, clarinet-based klezmer has roared back to prominence in this country and Europe after having, as one of the Epsteins puts it, “dropped dead for 20 or 25 years.”

The Epsteins, proud of “playing this cockamamie music for all our lives,” were energized by the boom. With 60 years of experience apiece, they even remember back to when “klezmer was an insulting word” because of its connection with itinerant, penniless musicians: “When you heard that term, you wanted to punch someone in the nose.”

It’s a tribute to how popular klezmer has become internationally that “Tickle in the Heart” (the title refers to the music’s emotional pull) is funded largely through German government arts money and directed by Swiss German filmmaker Stefan Schwietert.

Schwietert and American director of photography Robert Richman have given “Tickle” a crisp, sparkling black-and-white look that, along with the film’s restrained and deliberate tone, contrasts nicely with the music’s extravagant spirit.

Dispensing with voice-over narration, “Tickle” allows us to find our own way into the world of the Epsteins, who live within hailing distance of one another in the retirement world of South Florida.

Patriarch Max, the 85-year-old wizard of the clarinet, is first glimpsed meticulously washing his car, while drummer Julie demonstrates his recipe for potato latkes. Brother Willie is the keeper of the schedule and “the busiest retired trumpet player in Florida.”

Bluff, gruff, on-and-off cantankerous, the Epsteins are not often silent, and their chatter is one of the film’s pleasures as they genially argue with one another about questions of tempo and range and anything else that’s handy.

After glimpsing them at home, much of “Tickle” follows the Epsteins on some of their international musical journeys. They return to New York in the late 1960s, where a kind word from a powerful Hasidic rabbi leads to wedding gigs without end. And they pay a poignant visit to Pinsk, their father’s much-changed Eastern European hometown.

Especially interesting is their concert in Berlin, a play date Willie Epstein admitted “sounded very strange to us. We thought it would be a tough place for this kind of music to sell.” But klezmer turned out to be huge in Berlin, even though the audience is only 5% Jewish, and the brothers’ concert was a major success.

Though “Tickle” is expert at photographing the Epsteins setting up on stage and traveling on the road, the film, not surprisingly, is most alive when these slow-moving men begin to make the liveliest music imaginable. Once they get going, the years truly do fade away.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: nothing objectionable.

‘A Tickle in the Heart’

A zero film and Neapel Film production, released by Kino International. Director Stefan Schwietert. Producers Edward Rosenstein, Martin Hagemann, Thomas Kufus. Based on an idea by Joel Rubin and Rita Ottens. Cinematographer Robert Richman. Editor Arpad Bondy. Music the Epstein Brothers. Sound Alexander Gruzdev, Tom Paul. Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes.

* In limited release. Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 274-6869; Town Center, 17200 Ventura Blvd., Encino, (818) 981-9811.