Mina Tannenbaum
August 11-17 (In French with English subtitles, written and directed by Martine Dugowson). Mina Tannenbaum and Ethel Benegui don't know it yet, but they are destined to be friends - whether they like it or not. Born within hours of each other in the same Paris hospital, they enter the world on a wry, whimsical note. In her feature-length debut, Dugowson reveals a rueful wit as she surrounds them with waltzing baby-nurses and proud, affectionate fathers. The mothers, however, are already prepared to start undermining their daughters' self-confidence. Opening like a documentary in which friends and family share memories of Mina, her mother says, "She was always against marriage even as a child. The important thing in life is to find a shoe that fits your foot. Walk barefoot and you'll cut yourself or grow callused. As the Talmud says: 'He who does not marry is not a human being.'" Jumping forward to 1963, five-year-old Ethel is told by her mother, "Don't you ever marry a goy or I'll kill you." The film may set a new standard for the depiction of the suffocating "Jewish mother" stereotype.
Their mothers are only part of the problem, though. Because five-year-old Mina (Sabrina Germeau) is quiet, plain-looking, and bespectacled, she's shunned. Meanwhile, at a Bar Mitzvah, all the little girls are asked to dance except the pudgy Ethel (Elodie Grosbois). Both young actresses are exceptional, but the complex range of emotions developing on the face of Ethel during this sequence is astonishing to behold.
Finally meeting at age seven, the two of them together might have enough confidence for one person. While Mina is outwardly acerbic and artistically promising, and Ethel, still plump, is desperately outgoing, both are on their own. Even the angelic grandfathers Dugowson summons in the sky above them can't offer any guidance or support. One could definitely be the shoe for the other's foot, or, to borrow another image from the film, a glove for the other's hand. It is a relationship born of need - a symbiotic bond, sucking and giving life, and developing steadily over the course of nearly 30 years of friendship.
Dugowson delves deeply and often hilariously into their insecurities as the years pass. As young adults (wearing perfectly awful early-seventies clothing), Mina and Ethel (played with extraordinary range by Romane Bohringer and Elsa Zylberstein, respectively) encourage and console each other as they look for love with disastrous results. Dugowson keeps it light with a refreshing aural and visual audacity. Often, their words of support are followed by thoughts (in voice over) that emphasize their mutually addictive interdependence. Ethel is invoked as an alluring vamp, while Mina is conjured as a stern young rabbi. Ethel is already acquiring the tools to survive. "To be a female is to be a prey. So you might as well be one," she says. Mina responds, "Always the same. Chicks always side with the guys."
Jumping ahead to 1989, Mina and Ethel are still inexorably bound together in ways they do not understand. Mina, now the nearly successful artist, is living with a young painter who admires her talent and dark intensity. Ethel, meanwhile, has conquered her weight problem, and has nearly perfected the art of manipulation. Invoking the spirit of Rita Hayworth, she knows how to throw her head back and laugh emptily to insinuate herself into a job as, of all things, an art critic. That sets the stage for a conflict that, in turn, pushes the story towards tragedy.
While there is much that is wonderful in Mina Tannenbaum, it is somewhat distressing when it falters in the final stretches. A plot device designed to deepen Mina's insecurities followed by the disruptions of her male relationships seem forced, while her ensuing reactions don't quite add up even given the fragility of her mind. Still, the film is a remarkable achievement. Rarely has the evolution of a friendship been depicted with this much attention to psychological and emotional detail. Then, too, Dugowson's frequent flights of fancy are so liberating, you may feel empowered to imagine your own more satisfying resolution.
Martha and I
September 15-21 (In German with English subtitles, written and directed by Jiri Weiss). It may be that only in the midst of great evils is born great loves. So it seems in Jiri Weiss's deeply affecting, bittersweet remembrance of his family in pre-World War II Czechoslovakia during the Nazis' rise to power. Largely seen through the eyes of Weiss's teen-age alter-ego, Emil (played first by Vaclav Chalupa and later by Ondrej Vetchy), it makes us witnesses to his coming of age and to a relationship born out of convenience that grows into one of deep affection and devotion despite - and because of - the malevolence growing around them.
Marianne Saegebrecht deservedly won the Best Actress prize at the 1992 Seattle International Film Festival for her understated performance as Martha, the plump, fiftyish German Gentile and sweetly demure cook who agrees to marry her Jewish employer, Emil's seventyish Uncle Ernst, after he divorces his adulterous young wife. Ernst is a free-thinking, well-to-do obstetrician, a socialistic agnostic referred to in the community as "the doctor with the golden hands." He also has a golden heart as evidenced by high fees for the wealthy and non-existent ones for the poor. That becomes increasingly irrelevant to the townsfolk as his religion becomes an issue. Michel Piccoli gives another in a long line of great performances, perfectly modulating Ernst's humanity and rascally sense of humor, and subtly increasing sense of desperation.
The best love stories have a crystalline simplicity and "Martha and I" is no different. However, Weiss has managed to enrich his story with tangential material that never seems extraneous. At summer camp, Emil and his friends heatedly debate the current political climate, and it's easy to remember one's own youthful exuberance and naivete. But the scene asks an important question: What should one do when Democracy allows the formation of a party that would seek to abolish Democracy?
Also provided are a number of well-integrated moments that foreshadow and contribute to the film's gradually building sense of inevitability. When Martha introduces Ernst to her lower-class brothers who would later become ruthless Nazis, she laughingly recalls her childhood when Werner (Michael Kausch) would lock her in the closet.
Unlike some memory films that clutter the narrative with episodic anecdotes, and unlike some historical dramas that set their stories against an impersonal backdrop of world events, Martha and I draws inextricable connection between the growing evil of the times and the lives it transformed. With great warmth, humor, and poignancy it ultimately speaks eloquently to the transformative and transcendent power of love, even transcending the will to survive.
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Jade can't be blamed for wanting happiness in both worlds, but director Shum makes it clear that, despite the best intentions, the rift between them must necessarily warp and demean both. The film's suspense is derived from Jade's gradual recognition of her quandary and her struggle to reconcile her desires. Each scene becomes a catalyst that hastens her toward the realization that a double life is no life at all. Shum's approach is consistently fresh and Oh's performance is thoroughly engaging.
