“The Night I Fought God” and “Hemshej” hit theaters on Thursday. In the first case, it is a tragic story, only half achieved. The second is more successful.
Two national films were released this week. cinema Jewish themed: “The Night I Fought Against God” and “Hemshej”, both with an interesting proposal but with a monotone tone. The former is also affected by excessive solemnity, among other annoyances. In it two stories coexist: that of a young practitioner who debuts at the Clinics on the same day as the attack on the AMIA, where his grandfather also dies, for which the boy is overwhelmed, and the story of Jacob, his conflicts. with his father Abraham and his brother Esau, the reconciliation and the sacrifice of Isaac interrupted at the last minute.
How does all that come together? Not much is put together, but at a certain point someone remembers that during his flight Jacob rested his head on a stone that had once been part of the altar of Isaac’s sacrifice. “Questions without answers are like stones scattered in the desert, which someone will put together to give meaning to things,” is the vague explanation that comforts the young man in pain. At the same time that a bomb explodes, a child is born, there also arises another explanation, and another consolation (incidentally, the film can awaken other memories: the excellent representation of that morning of the bomb in “Anita”of Marcos Carnevaleand the mighty voice of Jehovah God in the burning bush that was Donald Hayne in “The Ten Commandments”, by Cecil B. De Mille).
“Hemshej”autobiographical documentary Juliet Landealso brings together two stories: that of her grandparents, the only surviving Jews from the town of Stockzek, Poland, and that of her evoking the doubts of her childhood and visiting that town, where she finds the daughter of some Christians who hid from the Jews. Lande Also visit the city of Byalistok and Israel. Throughout Israel he searches for the Martyrs’ Forest of Stockzek, or Stock, for the Jews, but does not find it. People sent donations to plant the trees in that forest, and it is not there.
Instead, he discovers that other sacred groves were made by razing Palestinian villages. “An act of memory erases the memory of another people”, he reflects, and also warns that the memory of Yiddish is being erased, and with it the songs, the poems, the sayings of the old Jews. In schools children only learn Hebrew. She herself cannot know everything she would like about her grandparents, who never returned to her town, and instead of growing old among the forests of Poland, they consoled themselves by spending their afternoons among the trees of Plaza Ireland. “Hemshej”, Lande’s father clarifies, has a similar meaning in both languages. It could be understood as “continuity”, but it is something more. Depending on how it is applied, it is an incentive to continue.
“The night I fought against God” (Argentina, 2024); Dir.: Rodrigo Fernández Engler; Int.: Tomás Kirzner, Luciano Cáceres, Carolina Kopelloff.
“Hemshet” (Argentina, 2023); Dir.: Julieta Lande. Documentary film.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
