A Devastating Tale of Devout in ‘Kadosh’

Amos Gitai’s somber, elegiac “Kadosh,” which means “sacred” in Yiddish, takesus into the sequestered world of Mea Shearim, the Orthodox Jewish quarter of Jerusalem, where its devout citizens are committed to preserving an ancient way of life. It is a profoundly patriarchal society in which many of its men devote their lives to the study of the Talmud while the women run the households and raise the children.

Meir (Yoram Hattab) and Rivka (Yael Abecassis) are such a couple. After 10 years of marriage they share a deep and passionate love, but they have not been blessed with children. They are happy together but now Meir’s father, the community’s rabbi, declares that because their marriage has produced no offspring it is illegitimate. Rivka must leave and Meir must marry another woman.

Citing Abraham’s fidelity to the barren Sarah and other biblical examples to his father, Meir attempts to preserve his marriage, but his father will not hear of it. Meir and Rivka are thrown into terrible conflict with their allegiance to their religion and to each other.

Although Gitai shot his interiors on sets, he filmed extensively in Mea Shearim, having gained the community’s trust. That he treats the Orthodox way of life with the utmost reverence and respect actually makes his film all the more devastating. Simply by showing a couple yielding to authority the way they are supposed to becomes an implicit criticism of their plight, especially of the community’s women, who may be cherished and revered by their men but who ultimately have no freedom and no defense when their spirits are being systematically crushed, as is the case with Rivka, who slides into silence in the seclusion of a rented room.

Ironically, her despair is doubtlessly made immeasurably deeper because of what would surely be construed as an act of defiance in her community: She discreetly consults a non-Orthodox female gynecologist who finds that she is in fact quite capable of bearing children. The doctor herself realizes that for Meir to submit to examination for a probable low sperm count or to consider artificial insemination or any other means of making child-bearing possible would be unthinkable. What, you have to wonder, will the rabbi say when the new wife proves to be no more capable of producing an heir than Rivka was?

Gitai has created a film that is as beautiful as it is all but unbearable to watch, for in a very real sense Rivka acquiesces, participates even, in her dire fate. Yet there is some respite in that the film is really the story of two sisters, with Rivka’s devoted, caring younger sister Malka (Meital Barda) gathering the courage to resist an arranged marriage with a man she does not love and commit to the man (Sami Hori) who has left the community to pursue a career as a rock singer.

Clearly, Gitai is in awe of the Orthodox community in its stubborn survival in the face of the Holocaust and every sort of historical displacement and incursion from the modern world. Yet he leaves us feeling that the rigidity that thus far has helped the Orthodoxy to survive may ultimately prove to be its undoing.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: considerable sensuality, complex adult themes.

‘Kadosh’

Yael Abecassis: Rivka

Yoram Hattab: Meir

Meital Barda: Malka

Sami Hori: Yaakov

A Kino International release of a co-production of Agav Hafakot, M.P. Productions and Le Studio Canal Plus. Director Amos Gitai. Producer Laurent Truchot. Screenplay Gitai, Eliette Abecassis with Jacky Cukier. Cinematographer Renato Berta. Editors Monica Coleman, Kobi Netanel. Music James Legg. Production designer John Paino. Art director Jim Donahue. Set decorator Rona De Angelo. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

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