Director’s first has depth beyond its length
“My Father My Lord” is an impressive first feature that stands out for its emotional qualities, its ambition and its brevity. In this day of endless epics, this 73-minute Israeli film manages to do a lot with very little time.
Written and directed by David Volach, “My Father My Lord” is essentially a three-character drama set within Israel’s ultra-orthodox, or haredi, community, among people whose entire lives are bound up in worship of and obligations to God.
Abraham Edelman is the rabbi of a small haredi community. Sensitively played by Assi Dayan, ironically the son of Moshe Dayan, one of the secular heroes of Israeli society, Edelman is introduced almost dwarfed by shelves overflowing with books of commentary on religious law. He is a caring man but a severe one, someone whose life is consumed by zealous, all-involving worship and the belief that nothing is more important than fervent prayer and strictly obeying the word of God.
Edelman’s wife Esther (Sharon Hacohen Bar) is equally pious but not as doctrinaire, and it is her intrinsic sweetness that we see in the couple’s son, young Menachem (Ilan Griff).
A bit frightened of his stern father, Menachem is more fascinated by the natural world than the insular universe of the Torah. He pays more attention to a family of doves outside his school window than to his lessons and, after witnessing the touching loyalty of a dog, wonders why animals are considered to be soulless. When a trip to the Dead Sea is suggested, Menachem couldn’t be more eager to go.
Given its short length, it’s not surprising that its plot can be recounted in a few sentences, but, despite some flaws, it has powerful resonance. For what can’t be replicated on the page is filmmaker Volach and the cast’s feeling for and facility with almost wordless emotion on screen.
Himself the now-secular child of an observant family, Volach has told the story from the inside, impeccably re-creating the contours of haredi life. Working with cinematographer Boaz Jonathan Yacov, he’s made something that resonates with the graceful simplicity of a religious parable. Dialogue is not what you take away from this film but rather its real gift for mood, atmosphere and ambience.
As film buffs watching “My Father My Lord” will guess without being told, Volach has intended this work as a kind of gloss on Part One of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s magisterial “Decalogue,” and a comparison of the two underlines the fact that, his gifts notwithstanding, the conclusion of Volach’s story feels schematic and forced in a way the Kieslowski does not.
But this is a first film after all, and an especially promising one at that.
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“My Father My Lord.” No MPAA rating. Running time: 1 hour, 13 minutes. In limited release.
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