FILL THE VOID - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The rich, vibrant backdrop of Tel Aviv's strict Orthodox Hasidic Haredi community yields the first great movie love story of the new millennium and a bona fide contemporary masterpiece. In release via Mongrel Media, this is a movie that's NOT TO BE MISSED. See it in a movie theatre on a big screen. In terms of its canvas, the film's humanity deserves to be experienced in the temple that is, the cinema.

Fill The Void (2012) *****
Dir. Rama Burshtein
Starring: Hadas Yaron, Yiftach Klein, Irit Sheleg, Chaim Sharir, Razia Israely, Hila Feldman, Renana Raz

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In a time when selfish personal needs are placed above those of tradition, culture and the preservation of the nuclear family unit, it's a genuine blessing to see a motion picture like Fill The Void which focuses so deeply and intensely upon a modern community steadfastly adhering to an ages-old way of life. That the film is one of the most beautifully written and delicately directed love stories in at least a decade - probably longer - is a testament to the great poetic qualities of filmmaker Rama Burshtein.

Like all great films, its surface is relatively simple, but as such, yields complexities and layers that augment this already enriching family drama. Shira (Hadas Yaron) is 18 years old and her family, members of the strict Orthodox Haredi community, has endeavoured to put together a perfect match for her husband-to-be and when she catches a glimpse of the bright, handsome young man selected to be her eventual life partner, she's thrilled beyond belief.

To add to her joy, it is Purim and her father, the venerable Rabbi Aharon (Chaim Sharir) is granting audience with family, friends and community in his patriarchal domicile - paying tribute by requesting their greatest needs and the good Rabbi granting them the practical means of attaining it. Shira's gorgeously radiant sister Esther (Renana Raz) is pregnant and her handsome, kind-hearted husband Yochay (Yiftach Klein) are in attendance for the festivities. Their undying love for each other is movingly and privately reaffirmed within the crowded family home.

The only spanner in the works appears to be the unmarried Frieda (Hila Feldman) who loves the family dearly, but also harbours jealousy and resentment that she is still without a match and terrified she will become an old maid. This, however, is not enough to spoil this time of celebration, prayer and song. Happiness abounds.

Sadly, into this bliss, tragedy of the most unexpected and devastating kind strikes. The family is faced with an emptiness and sorrow that is exacerbated by the conundrum of what to do about all the marriage plans in the works that have been seriously thrown out of whack by the calamitous events that have befallen them. And it is young, hopeful Shira who is faced with the greatest challenge of all - to maintain family purity, lineage and the very ties that bind - all of which are potentially convenient for everyone but herself and most of all, with the very real possibility that all her hopes and dreams will be forever altered, if not completely shattered.

Fill The Void becomes one of the most universal and moving of all love stories - rooted as it is in the notion of a greater good - sacrifice.

Burshtein's screenplay is both literate and passionate. She's provided herself with a first-rate template to direct a film of great power. Like the conservative community she trains her lens upon, she forces herself to stay within their world as closely as possible with mostly interior scenes, often in closeup and with a look that is warm, sumptuous, gorgeously composed and lit - all reflective of an insular world that beats on in spite of an outside secular and modern world. Her pacing is meticulous in its fluidity or rather, she seems in such complete control of the slow, deliberate nature of how life unfolds that we never feel like she's self-indulgently plodding along to maintain "reality", but instead creates a slow, delicate series of ebbs and flows that build to a crescendo of passion and emotion.

It is one of the few contemporary pieces of cinema that soars in ways the medium, at its core, has the potential to do when its exploited artistically in ways it seldom is - a medium that is more often squandered instead of being nurtured and valued for the great gifts it can bestow upon mankind.

Burshtein has created what might be one of our few modern masterpieces. Not a frame seems out of place, not a line of dialogue seems false, not a single performance achieves less than the miraculous.

Fill The Void does indeed fill a void. It's a movie we desperately need in these times - a film that explores both the pitfalls and joys of tradition, but at the same time, exposing how tradition can indeed be a beautiful part of existence when it is mediated and tempered by those, like the character of Shira, who allow the indomitability of her intellect, reason and spirit to seek what is ultimately her own happiness and fulfilment - one that is as inclusive of herself as it is of those around her.

Given that this is a film about a community in which marriage is the highest and holiest aspiration for women, Burshtein might have actually crafted one of the most feminist films in recent movie history. At its most basic level, though, it's a film so full of joy, sadness, humour and romance, that it puts most films about love, family and tradition to shame.

A masterpiece? I'd say so.

"Fill The Void" is in theatrical release via Mongrel Media.

BEYOND THE HILLS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Cristian Mungiu delivers harrowing masterwork in the tradition of Dreyer's great work focusing upon the exploitation of women within fundamentalist religions. Playing theatrically in Canada at TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX in Toronto via Mongrel Media.

Beyond the Hills (2012) *****
dir. Cristian Mungiu
Starring: Cosmina Stratan, Cristina Flutur, Valeriu Andriuta

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Women who confess during their menstrual period are sinners. Afflicted with the said Woman's Time, they do not dare enter a church (Orthodox, of course - other denominations are unholy). It's highly inappropriate to expose the "dirty" condition of vaginal discharge to the face of God or his representatives.

In fact, women who commit any sins whatsoever are shit out of luck in Eastern Rite Christian religions and their penance for any affronts to Our Lord will rate more vigorous, painful prostrations than a priest can shake his censer of incense at. Related to this is that most orphanages (in virtually any former Communist state in Central/Eastern Europe) boot out their charges penniless at age 16-18. The young women who are lucky enough to be earmarked to serve God as a Nun are the few who can avoid being sold into sexual slavery upon leaving the orphanage.

Many of these women recruited to serve God have ironically already suffered abuse at the hands of orphanage officials who notoriously (and for a price), would look the other way while little girls in their care were forced to pose for child pornography. And then, once the "lucky few" chosen to serve God enter the religious institutions, they are repressed, humiliated and indoctrinated into a life of endless exploitation within the Eastern Rite worship of Christ.

I try to reserve the word "masterpiece" for motion pictures that have lived a bit longer in the world than this one, but I'm pretty convinced Cristian Mungiu (director of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) has created a film of lasting value. In its own way the film tells an extremely vital tale in a manner that contributes both to cinema as an art and perhaps even more importantly, to humanity.

So yes, Beyond the Hills is a masterpiece. It tells the harrowing and moving story of two friends who took separate paths after their release from a Moldavian orphanage and charts their heartbreaking reunion some years later. Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) joined a nearby monastery to become a nun under the strict patriarchy of an Orthodox priest referred to as "Papa" (Valeriu Andriuta). Alina (Cristina Flutur) has been living "alone" in Germany and working, so she says, as a waitress. Her plan is to extricate Voichita from the monastery so they can rekindle their deep love and friendship together.

God, or rather, religious hypocrisy and hysteria has other plans. What follows is as nightmarish an exploitation of women as the forced sex trade - the creepily insidious manner in which women are forced into the sexist, misogynistic and subservient roles that are so prevalent in cultures rooted in the centuries-old Eastern Rite religious traditions. Even more horrendous are the deep-seeded attitudes these cultures have towards orphans (also rooted in sexism and misogyny). For a huge majority of Eastern Rite followers, orphans take on the sins of their mothers and as such, our two central characters were born into a world that believed them to be lesser human beings because of this.

Mungiu charts the final weeks of the orphans' friendship in a style that is somewhat reminiscent of that employed by Carl Dreyer - most notably in the religious-themed Day of Wrath and Ordet. Visually, Mungiu's images are occasionally stark, but unlike the austere qualities Dreyer imbues his visuals with, Mungiu's frames are much more packed with details that border on neo-realism. Dreyer's approach is obviously more classical (in his own demented, compelling fashion), however he was so ahead of his time in terms of exploring themes of religious repression/oppression upon women. With Mungiu, and Beyond The Hills specifically, it feels like Dreyer has spawned a younger contemporary director to tackle similar themes in equally brilliant ways. Even more extraordinary is that BOTH directors - separated by decades - speak universally, and NOT ephemerally on this theme.

With Beyond the Hills, nothing in terms of production design ever seems less than real, but where Mungiu and Dreyer share approaches can be found in the tableau-styled takes and, of course, in the stories that are told. Dreyer might be one of the great film artists to have committed himself to the thematic concerns of women amidst religious and/or societal repression and their exploitation within these worlds. Clearly with the horrific tale of abortion, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and now Beyond the Hills, Mungiu continues in Dreyer's bold thematic and narrative tradition of placing women and their suffering in patriarchal worlds.

Mungiu's screenplay is quite exquisite. There is, on the surface, a relatively simple plot which allows him to layer numerous complex psychological layers and points of view (though the focus is always clear when it needs to be). His cast acquit themselves beautifully with the gorgeous writing he's wrought for them and the long, simple takes allow his cast to naturally bring the story beats alive and to play out in ways that never seem false or predictable.

Furthermore, and with the same mastery brought to bear in Dreyer's great work, Mungiu establishes a pace that is so hypnotic that the film's running time never seems as long as it actually is.

"Beyond The Hills", distributed by Mongrel Media, is playing theatrically in Canada at the Toronto International Film Festival's TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX.   For further information and tickets, visit the TIFF website HERE.

FILL THE VOID - TIFF 2012 - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Fill The Void (2012) *****
Dir. Rama Burshtein
Starring: Hadas Yaron, Yiftach Klein, Irit Sheleg, Chaim Sharir, Razia Israely, Hila Feldman, Renana Raz

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In a time when selfish personal needs are placed above those of tradition, culture and the preservation of the nuclear family unit, it's a genuine blessing to see a motion picture like Fill The Void which focuses so deeply and intensely upon a modern community steadfastly adhering to an ages-old way of life. That the film is one of the most beautifully written and delicately directed love stories in at least a decade - probably longer - is a testament to the great poetic qualities of filmmaker Rama Burshtein.

Like all great films, its surface is relatively simple, but as such, yields complexities and layers that augment this already enriching family drama. Shira (Hadas Yaron) is 18 years old and her family, members of the strict Orthodox Haredi community, has endeavoured to put together a perfect match for her husband-to-be and when she catches a glimpse of the bright, handsome young man selected to be her eventual life partner, she's thrilled beyond belief.

To add to her joy, it is Purim and her father, the venerable Rabbi Aharon (Chaim Sharir) is granting audience with family, friends and community in his patriarchal domicile - paying tribute by requesting their greatest needs and the good Rabbi granting them the practical means of attaining it. Shira's gorgeously radiant sister Esther (Renana Raz) is pregnant and her handsome, kind-hearted husband Yochay (Yiftach Klein) are in attendance for the festivities. Their undying love for each other is movingly and privately reaffirmed within the crowded family home.

The only spanner in the works appears to be the unmarried Frieda (Hila Feldman) who loves the family dearly, but also harbours jealousy and resentment that she is still without a match and terrified she will become an old maid. This, however, is not enough to spoil this time of celebration, prayer and song. Happiness abounds.

Sadly, into this bliss, tragedy of the most unexpected and devastating kind strikes. The family is faced with an emptiness and sorrow that is exacerbated by the conundrum of what to do about all the marriage plans in the works that have been seriously thrown out of whack by the calamitous events that have befallen them. And it is young, hopeful Shira who is faced with the greatest challenge of all - to maintain family purity, lineage and the very ties that bind - all of which are potentially convenient for everyone but herself and most of all, with the very real possibility that all her hopes and dreams will be forever altered, if not completely shattered.

Fill The Void becomes one of the most universal and moving of all love stories - rooted as it is in the notion of a greater good - sacrifice.

Burshtein's screenplay is both literate and passionate. She's provided herself with a first-rate template to direct a film of great power. Like the conservative community she trains her lens upon, she forces herself to stay within their world as closely as possible with mostly interior scenes, often in closeup and with a look that is warm, sumptuous, gorgeously composed and lit - all reflective of an insular world that beats on in spite of an outside secular and modern world. Her pacing is meticulous in its fluidity or rather, she seems in such complete control of the slow, deliberate nature of how life unfolds that we never feel like she's self-indulgently plodding along to maintain "reality", but instead creates a slow, delicate series of ebbs and flows that build to a crescendo of passion and emotion.

It is one of the few contemporary pieces of cinema that soars in ways the medium, at its core, has the potential to do when its exploited artistically in ways it seldom is - a medium that is more often squandered instead of being nurtured and valued for the great gifts it can bestow upon mankind.

Burshtein has created what might be one of our few modern masterpieces. Not a frame seems out of place, not a line of dialogue seems false, not a single performance achieves less than the miraculous.

Fill The Void does indeed fill a void. It's a movie we desperately need in these times - a film that explores both the pitfalls and joys of tradition, but at the same time, exposing how tradition can indeed be a beautiful part of existence when it is mediated and tempered by those, like the character of Shira, who allow the indomitability of her intellect, reason and spirit to seek what is ultimately her own happiness and fulfilment - one that is as inclusive of herself as it is of those around her.

Given that this is a film about a community in which marriage is the highest and holiest aspiration for women, Burshtein might have actually crafted one of the most feminist films in recent movie history. At its most basic level, though, it's a film so full of joy, sadness, humour and romance, that it puts most films about love, family and tradition to shame.

A masterpiece? I'd say so.

"Fill The Void" via Mongrel Media premieres at TIFF 2012.