Fill The Void (2012)

From IMDB:

A devout 18-year-old Israeli is pressured to marry the husband of her late sister. Declaring her independence is not an option in Tel Aviv’s ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community, where religious law, tradition and the rabbi’s word are absolute.

If you want to see a quiet (except when the men are singing and dancing), slow, thoughtful portrait of the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic culture, you will enjoy this film in Hebrew with English subtitles.

Spoken words are scarce enough that it can be difficult if not impossible to know what is motivating some of the characters.

To summarize the film is easy: Yochay’s wife Esther dies in childbirth. Yochay needs a wife for his newborn child Mordechai. More exactly, he wants to marry Esther’s youngest sister Shira. But Shira’s older sister Frieda is, to her great shame, not yet married. Mother, father, aunt, Yochay and the culture pressure Shira to marry Yochay. Unfortunately Shira is unwilling to do so. Her conflict is more or less the content of the entire film. More I will not say.

Whether love was ever an issue is not clear.

If nothing else, the film is a captivating peek into the lives of these aloof and separate Jews.

For more information on this worthwhile film see the Wikipedia discussion.

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