Close-up on Jewish cinema
 
THIS year’s Sydney Film Festival (SFF) has been shortened, running from June 3-14, while the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) runs from July 24-August 8.
Certainly the Jewish highlight of this year’s SFF will be $9.99, an astonishing stop-motion clay animation (claymation), which is the first official Australian-Israeli co-production (eligible for subsidies in both countries). ¬†
It is directed by American-based Israeli Tatia Rosenthal (in her first feature) and written by Rosenthal and noted Israeli writer Etgar Keret, based on Keret’s short stories. ¬†
The production crew consists of a true mix of Israelis and Australians, with lead producers Emile Sherman from Australia and Amir Harel from Israel, and an all-star voice cast including Geoffrey Rush, Anthony LaPaglia, Barry Otto, Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton and Claudia Karvan.  
Through the lives of a single dad and his sons, nothing less than “the meaning of life” is tackled in $9.99.¬†Reviewers have been calling this film “hypnotic”, “enchanting”, “charming”, “unpredictable” and “meaningful”.¬†The production design appears to be Tel Aviv “Bauhaus modern” meets Australian suburban, down to the council rubbish bins just like the ones in my driveway. ¬†
Few would have expected that Australia could develop such animation talent, but following on from the recent Mary and Max, it appears that we have.¬† Like Mary and Max, this surreal film (as anyone who has read Keret’s stories will understand) is made for adults.¬† $9.99 screens on June 11 and 13.¬†Since the era of Louis B Mayer and Samuel Goldwyn (who once said that “a wide screen just makes a bad film twice as bad”) in the early years of Hollywood, there have been legions of colourful Jewish media and entertainment personalities.
This year, Sydney’s festival features major documentaries that detail two controversial Jewish personalities:¬† Phil Spector and Roman Polanski.¬†Spector is an American-Jewish music producer and songwriter, who has worked with artists as wide-ranging as John Lennon, The Righteous Brothers, The Ramones and Tina Turner. ¬†
But his downfall has been profound:  in April of this year, he was convicted of murder in the shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson. In the film The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector (which was completed prior to the conviction), he is interviewed at length about his strange life and career.  The result is captivating.
There is no doubt that Roman Polanski has lived enough tragedy for many lifetimes.  As a child survivor of the Holocaust, Polanski escaped from the Cracow Ghetto and survived the war in Poland by living in a barn and on the streets.  
In the 1960s, he became a noted film director working in Poland and England.¬†In 1968, he met and married actress Sharon Tate, moving with her to Los Angeles, where he directed Rosemary’s Baby.¬†In 1969, Tate -— then eight months pregnant with their first child -— and four others were murdered in their home by members of the Charles Manson “family”, while Polanski was in England. ¬†
Despite this, Polanski continued to direct a number of notable films in the 1970s, including the classic Chinatown.¬†He has always had an affinity for “the dark side”, seen most recently in his Academy Award for best director of The Pianist.¬†The festival’s screening of the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired -— the first I can recall about this tortured filmmaker -— focuses particularly on a now legendary 1977 statutory rape case, in which Polanski was convicted of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl — in an incident that ironically took place at Jack Nicholson’s Los Angeles home. ¬†
Fearful of a long prison sentence, Polanski fled the US in February 1978 for France, where he has lived and worked since.¬†Undoubtedly, Religulous will be one of the festival’s most entertaining films.¬† Directed by Jewish comedian Larry Charles (Borat), this “mockumentary”-style film is unashamedly about the strangeness of religions, with Bill Maher interviewing Christians, Jews, Muslims, Mormons and Scientologists about their faith.
While it opens in Australian cinemas later this year, this is the opportunity to see a preview screening, although it is not for those easily offended.¬†By contrast, Disgrace, an adaptation of the strong and powerful JM Coetzee novel of the same name -— directed by Steve Jacobs and co-produced by Emile Sherman (again, this appears to be his festival) -— is not easy to watch.¬†
Set in post-apartheid South Africa, John Malkovich gives a riveting performance as the academic David Lurie, a character who many reviewers and readers have interpreted as being Jewish.¬†Unmistaken Child (Hagilgul) is an accomplished Israeli documentary by Nati Baratz, which proves yet again that Israel’s film industry has moved well beyond “bourekas” entertainment, north Tel Aviv dramas and stories of angst-filled soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, to look at the wider world.
This feature-length film tells the story of a timid Tibetan Buddhist monk Tenzin Zopa, who is instructed by the Dalai Lama to go on a quest to find his late master’s reincarnation.¬†On the Road to Tel Aviv (B’Derech le Tel Aviv) is a 15-minute short Israeli drama set on a bus against the background of suicide bombing. ¬†
When a young man spies a suspicious Arab woman and tries to exit with his fiancé, the scene is set for a parable about fear and distrust. It screens following Amreeka, an American-Kuwaiti co-production about Palestinian Arabs travelling to America at the beginning of the most recent Iraq war.
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee was written and directed by Rebecca Miller, daughter of noted Jewish playwright Arthur Miller, and stars Robin Wright Penn as Pippa, a mother of two grown children who is married to Herb (Alan Arkin), a retired publisher 30 years her senior.  
When the Lees move to a retirement village and Pippa meets her new neighbour Chris (Keanu Reeves), she starts to face the ramifications of her life’s choices. Reportedly, Arkin as the ageing Jewish publisher steals every scene he is in.¬†In 1974, Canadian-Jewish director Ted Kotcheff directed The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, starring a then-unknown Richard Dreyfuss in a tale about the Montreal Jewish community, a film that became Canada’s biggest box office hit in 50 years. ¬†
In 1971 he came to Australia to direct Wake in Fright, the Australian classic based on Kenneth Cook’s novel and starring Chips Rafferty and Jack Thompson in his film debut. Kotcheff returns to Australia as a festival guest for a question and answer session after a special screening of Wake in Fright on June 13.
Other Jewish directors whose films appear in SFF include Stephen Frears (Cheri), who did not find out that his mother was Jewish until he was in his late 20s Joe Berlinger (Crude -— a documentary about oil in Ecuador) and Chantal Akerman (a re-release of her influential 1975 film Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles).
While it appears to have no Jewish themes, the new film Accidents Happen co-stars Geena Davis, and was all shot in Sydney’s upper North Shore, primarily in St Ives and Pymble, two suburbs that turn out to be great stand-ins for 1980s Connecticut, USA — where the film is set.¬†Many St Ives residents living near Lincoln Avenue watched the film being made with some pretty impressive cranes and rain-making equipment.¬† (This is not so unusual: Melbourne became the stand-in location for Boston for the Nicholas Cage supernatural thriller The Knowing, which screened in Australia earlier this year.)
The MIFF does not announce its full program until July 7, but this year it will feature the premiere screening of the new Australian teen horror film The Loved Ones, written and directed by Victorian Sean Byrne and produced by American-born Australian-Jewish producer Mark Lazarus (Australian Rules).¬†This truly scary story of a year 12 student who is kidnapped by the “creepiest girl in school” and her father has the potential to become one of the greatest teen horror films since The Blair Witch Project.
SFF runs from June 3-14. For more information:  sff.org.au. 
MIFF runs from July 24-August 9. For more information: melbournefilmfestival.com.au.
 
Photo: A scene from the claymation film $9.99, the first official Australian-Israeli co-production.