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Memorable, crazy movie

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Imagine if I were to make a movie about women, and in this movie, the women all secretly meet and plan how to make their guys' lives miserable, and then have a lesbian fling to make themselves feel better. And I film this as a serious drama with real people and situations. Because I take it seriously, I add scattered technical details that I picked up from various sources about women and their menstrual cycles throughout the movie to prove that I know what I am talking about.All I would be doing, obviously, is showing my immaturity, ignorance, misogyny, and an approach to tackling a subject that is too silly to even be called a straw-man approach. The above hypothetical movie would be hilariously pathetic.And that's what this movie experience was like for me. I lived for a while in these orthodox religious circles so I know what I am talking about. But you don't need experience to realize that this movie is completely ridiculous. After the first ten minutes of disgust, I found myself laughing for the next 90 minutes at the movie and at Amos Gitai.To list the inaccuracies in this movie would take pages, but, believe it or not, that is not the primary problem with this movie. The problem with this movie is that it is a hateful movie for secular people to fuel more hatred and to feel superior to the orthodox with easy and very crudely drawn targets.Yes there are religious wife-beaters and clueless insensitive men and other various social problems in the orthodox religious world. Yes, this topic could theoretically be handled in a good movie by the right person. But this is definitely not that movie. As described above, this movie is the equivalent of a misogynist making a movie about women, basing it on the fact that there are real bitches out there that did horrible things to men. And then calling the movie 'Female' ('Kadosh' means 'holy' - obviously a crude and very cheap provocation).As an example of one of the many problems with this movie, Abecassis is supposed to be an insider brought up in a religious family, but she constantly acts as an outsider who has not even minimal regard for anything religious. She is obviously Gitai's mouthpiece, providing the intended secular audience a persona they can project themselves onto.As another example, the sex scene was so hilariously over the top I rewound it a couple of times and still couldn't stop laughing. Here is an ultimately sensitive topic of marital rape, and yet I couldn't stop laughing, because the guy was jumping up and down on her as if he were on a trampoline. Obviously Gitai doesn't know about the training orthodox men go through before a marriage and the years of study in books that always emphasize gentleness and sensitivity. If the man were depicted as a boorish lout whose insensitivity led to rape, then that would be one thing. But this violence came out of nowhere like he were a jack-in-the-box bouncing rapist, because, as we all know, all religious men are violent rapists right?If you think all religious orthodox Jews are backwards, clueless fanatics and misogynists that don't even go to doctors (does Gitai think they are Amish?), then this movie will be right up your alley. If, on the other hand, you have some intelligence, low bias, and a certain level of maturity, this movie will make you laugh.

This is the film to see if you want to commit suicide but feel you're just not depressed enough to do the deed.Everything about the film is well done. Looks good, music is nice. The religious scenes have a documentary feel. It's hard to imagine that they did not film actual people in actual settings. (Maybe they did.) Anyway, this film is unremittingly depressing with no end in sight. It forces one to think that anyone who lives the Hassidic life is insane (and maybe they are, I don't know because I don't know any Hassidics.) When the film was finally over and I saw where it was leaving off I felt really sad. So if you're wanting to be sad, here's your film.

It is apparent that director, writers and everyone else knows nothing about their own religion or the people who practice it. This movie is endlessly flawed and overall a complete crock.For instance, there is a scene where the rabbi enters the woman's ritual bath while a naked woman is bathing, puts his hand on the head of a woman there and blesses her. This is complete mockery of the laws, in this scene alone some of the laws broken include: Modesty, a rabbi would never enter a ritual bath house while there are woman in it.Improper contact, a rabbi would never put his hand on a woman's head, not to mention that it is not the way a blessing is given.The woman from the ritual bath is dunking a naked woman by pushing her head under the water, the laws regarding ritual bathing require the entire body to make direct contact with the bath water; this means nobody should be in contact with the person bathing, certainly not pushing them under!There was more just in that scene alone, like dunking 13 times (where does that concept even come from?) not to mention the rest of the movie was a total fallacy. It is scary what ignorance can concoct!

There are some thoughtful and well-written reviews both at Amazon and the IMDb and elsewhere in which it is claimed that the type of Jewish Orthodoxy presented here is not accurate. There are quibbles about the unnatural way that Meir puts on his garments. There is criticism of the selection of prayers recited, especially Meir giving thanks that he was not born a woman.Moreover, there is the assertion that orthodox Judaism does NOT require that a man repudiate his wife after ten years of marriage even though she may be barren. Furthermore, the character of Yossef is said not to be typical of orthodox Jewish men since he takes his wife sexually without love or tenderness, that he hits her when angry, and goes about the streets of Israel with a loudspeaker hawking his religious point of view.First, it is a shame (if true) that the way Meir dressed and recited his morning prayers was inaccurate, because such details can easily be made accurate with some research. Certainly director Amos Gitai had access to many orthodox people who could have helped him. Putting that aside, the artistic point of the opening scene was to immerse the viewer into a world based on religious beliefs and practices that are strikingly different from the secular world of today. He also wanted to introduce his theme, which is that women in Orthodox Judaism, as in the other two great religions of the Middle East, in their fundamentalist interpretations--this bears repeating: in their fundamentalist interpretations--are not on an equal level with men.Certainly in a realistic sense, Meir, since he dearly loves his wife, would have chosen something else to recite. However, I think we can give Gitai some artistic license here. The fact that such a prayer exits in the Jewish canon is not to be denied.Second, the film does NOT claim that Orthodox Judaism requires that a man repudiate his wife after ten years of childless marriage. Instead it makes the very strong point that, from the point of view of Orthodox Judaism, such a woman is not fulfilling her role in society, and that there will be people outside the marriage who will try to persuade him to abandon her. Gitai's screenplay contains several textual pronouncements to that effect. The fact that Meir is torn between his love for his wife and his love for his religion is really the point. How he resolves that dilemma is an individual choice, and that is what the film shows.As for the unflattering character of Yossef, whom Rivka's sister Malka is persuaded to marry (not forced, mind you, but persuaded) he is a foil and a counterpoint for the loving and deeply religious Meir. The fact that he is not a poster boy for Orthodox Judaism is not a valid criticism of the film, since all religions have their black sheep.I think a fairer criticism of the film can be made by addressing the question of, was it entertaining and/or a work of art?Here I have mixed feelings. Certainly the acting was excellent, and the theme a worthy one. Gitai's desire to show the underlying similarities among the conservative expressions of all three Abrahamic religions, through their shared patriarchal attitudes toward women and their estrangement from the postmodern world, was very well taken and appropriate. Where I think Gitai failed as film maker is in his inability to be completely fair to the orthodox way of life--his failure to show the joys as well as the sorrows of its everyday life which would help outsiders to understand why people adhere to such a way of life.I also think that the film could have been better edited. In the documentary about how the film was made we see scenes that were cut that I think should have been retained, especially the scene in which the omelette was made and the scene in which the mother critiques the life choices her three daughters have made. Instead we have some scenes that ran too long. It is a fine technique that Gitai sometimes employs of letting the silence speak for the characters, of holding the camera on the scene to allow the audience to reflect and then to reflect again. However, I think this can be overdone and was overdone, and that judicious cutting of some of the scenes would have strengthened the movie.Bottom line: a slow polemic of a movie that nonetheless is worth seeing because of the importance and timeliness of its theme, the originality of some of the techniques, and the fine acting, especially by Yael Abecassis who played Rivka and Meital Barda who played Malka.One more point: yellow subtitles, please!(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)