PSIFF 2017 – 4th day
The fourth day is also hard-hitting day. We start with “Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe”. 
Austrian Jewish intellectual Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), one of the most read German-language writers of his time, left his homeland with the rise of Hitler and spent years in exile, traveling between Buenos Aires, New York and Brazil. Actress-turned-director Maria Schrader (the radiant star of Aimée & Jaguar) tells the story of those exile years in five chapters and an epilogue, crafting an exquisite second feature. She focuses on Zweig’s struggles to find the right stance towards events in Nazi Germany, while searching for a home in the New World. His last place in 1942 was Petropolis, a German colony town in Brazil. Zweig’s life comes to the same conclusion as his friend Joseph Roth (Radetzky’s March).
“What makes the work of Schrader and co-screenwriter Jan Schomburg psychologically insightful and also pack a serious emotional wallop is their smart choice to focus on a handful of specific moments, rather than opting for a more traditional bio-drama structure that tries to cram in a much larger chronology … Much of the feature’s quietly accumulated emotional power derives from the fact that viewers have to connect some of the dots themselves.” Boyd van Hoeij, The Hollywood Reporter
Knowing that my third feature was going to also be hard-hitting, I chose a Larry David style comedy from Israel. Israeli-American filmmaker Asaph Polonsky’s debut is a quirky, loose-limbed movie following a middle-aged Israeli couple as the one-week ritual mourning period (shiva) for their cancer-stricken adult son comes to an end. 
Mother Vicky (Evgenia Dodina) is all for returning to normal life asap, but father Eyal (comedian Shai Avivi, known as “the Larry David of Israel”) is at a loss. After visiting his son’s hospital room-and coming away with a bag of medicinal marijuana-Eyal lets his neighbors’ stoner son Zooler (Tomer Kapon) teach him how to roll a joint. Soon, the two men-an odd couple if there ever was one-embark on a series of weed-enhanced encounters that run the gamut from amusing to introspective. Along the way, Polonsky offers some insights into what mourning means for different people… I found it boring.
Winner: Best First Film, Best Screenplay, Best Israeli Feature, Jerusalem
“Blindness” – there are two kinds, not seeing objects, and not seeing what’s going on – there are two words for that in Polish, and the latter meaning is the title – although I am not sure what the title was meant to convey. The intimate, metaphysical drama Blindness finds 73-year-old director Bugajski still working at the height of his powers and revisiting some of the same themes and situations of his harrowing, long-banned masterpiece Interrogation (1982).Blindness posits a 1962 meeting between Julia Prajs Brystygier, aka “Bloody Luna,” the sadistic head of Department V in the Stalinist-era Ministry of Information, an enthusiastic leader in the “War against Religion,” and Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, a man whose 1953 arrest she facilitated. A remarkable performance by Maria Mamona, the director’s wife, puts viewers inside the head of its complicated protagonist. By 1962, Brystygier, one of the most infamous people in post-war Poland, has tried to remake her life. She works at a publishing house and has even written a novel. But at the age of 59, a mental crisis strikes, leaving her at a moral crossroads. Can she, born Jewish, a longtime student of philosophy, a self-proclaimed agnostic, an ardent Communist and a person who bears responsibility for some unarguably terrible deeds, find forgiveness and redemption in what life remains to her? That is ostensible the theme, but there are elements in it that i find unanswered – is this a romanticized peon to Polish Catholicism or christianity (ala Quo Vadis), is this an adoration peace for Cardinal Wyszynski (my grandfather was his dentist and he liked him) or is it subtly antisemitic since the leading nun is Jewish as are several other nuns alive and dead. If I run into the director I will ask him. The Maria Mamona playing Julia was superb. A very thought-provoking movie.
