Unorthodox (Review) and an aside
Aug. 28th, 2020 09:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakBefore I get to the review part, I can't help a remark on the bizarre shenanigans overseas otherwise known as the RNC this week. I mean, luckily we're spared the spectacle itself and just get summaries over here, and to comment on all the alternate reality stuff would take up all day and night, but one single detail I can't let pass unobserved. It is this. Richard Grenell was easily the most unpopular US ambassador in Germany ever pretty much from the moment the Orange Menace appointed him and Grenell started by getting chummy with our Neonazis in parliament, the AFD, before even having moved into the embassy. He then proceded the rest of his stint in this vein. (His successor as US ambassador to Germany, btw, seems to have decided to emulate him, since he also hadn't got here yet before declaring our Erinnerungskultur, i.e. the remembrance of the Holocaust and all the crimes the Third Reich, to be "sick". I can see how it would confuse a Trumpian that you're supposed to be taught in school about the crimes committed not just by "a few bad apples" but by the majority of your nation.) Well, this same Richard Grenell declared he watched the creature currently squatting in the White House "charm Angela Merkel". Okay, Grenell. Lie about everything from Trump's non-response to the Pandemic to his inciting violence among his armed to the teeth supporters, that's par the course and also there are enough Americans to notice. But slandering our chancellor, a woman whose most recent response to the Orange Menace trying to use her for a photo op by telling him "thanks but no thanks" when Trump wanted to hold a G7 summit in the US in June (Macron then had to break it to Trump that no Merkel means no summit, upon which the big toddler threw a temper tantrum in the form of US troop reduction in Germany)? That's personal. May you be condemned to an eternity of standing in supermarket queues with fellow nutty Trump supporters while someone plays Heino's collected songs in the background.
Now, on to the review. Unorthodox uses the credit "inspired by" rather than "based on" the memoirs of Deborah Feldman, which I thnk more productions should to, as it's usually more honest. Not having read the memoirs in question, I take it from a quick glance to the professional reviews that the main difference is that Deborah Feldman's leaving of the Hasidic community she was born into took far longer, and that the Berlin part of the story was more or less made up entirely, through Deborah Feldman did end up in Berlin. Which, fair enough: the main character in Unorthodox the tv miniseries is called Esty (for Esther), not Deborah, and fiction triggered by real events that becomes its own story has a long and fine tradition. (If occasionally a tragic one. Ask the Lwelleyn-Davies brothers.) I'm therefore basing my review simply on what is on screen, without a compare and contrast to the book which is still unknown to me.
First of all: hats off to both Shira Haas, who is stunningly good as the central character, Esty, and Maria Schrader, whom I've always liked as an actress (most recently in Deutschland 83 - Anna Winkler, who co-wrote Deutschland 83, is also one of the co-writers here) and whose second movie as a director, the Stefan Zweig biopic Vor der Morgenröte, had impressed me very much. The miniseries starts with Esty leaving/escaping her home, and through the rest of the four episodes moves in two timelines, her present day new life in Berlin and in flashbacks her old life in Wlliamsburg, Brooklyn, showing why she eventually left. About two thirds of the dialogue spoken is in Yiddish; the rest are smatterings of English and some German (not much, it's the least used of the on screen languages, which the script pulls off by making the new friends Esty finds in Berlin international music students who of course talk English to her). Now I've watched the occasional old Polish movie in Yiddish (The Dybbuk, most notably), but this is the first current day production where Yiddish is the main language used that I've seen, and it's fascinating to me to try and understand with as little glancing at the subtitles as I manage. As opposed to many a tv production where characters speak a few German sentences and sound incredibly stilted while being told they're fluent (no, not forgetting Highlander and Alias examples any time soon), the Yiddish here really sounds fluent to laywoman me, and the actors feel natural in it (though the professional reviews tell me they had to be trained by the man who plays the old Rabbi). But it's often not the spoken passages that make for the most emotional moments - one reason why Shira Haas impressed me so much is that you always feel there's so much going on in Esty despite her often not commenting out loud but listening (until there finally is an outburst), whether it's in the past or present actions.
The miniseries also more or less has no villain. Moishe, the cousin sent after Esty along with her husband, and her mother-in-law come closest, but the mother-in-law is more traditionally overbearing than anything else, and when Moishe in the final episode threatens Esty by telling her she won't be able to live outside the community, she'll want to go back, only then it will be too late, you get the sense he's talking of himself (for Moishe had left for a while and come back); he's portrayed as miserable in both worlds. Esty's husband, Yanky, is portrayed as well-meaning and gentle but utterly clueless, and basically a study of how due to the patriarchal system you're in you can with the best intentions of the world still oppress your wife and be part of her misery. One of the things I had liked about Vor der Morgenröte was how it managed to convey a lot about relationships other than the central one which made its world feel real; for example, Zweig's relationship with his first wife utterly comes to life in the segment devoted to her, and you feel you entirely know what their marriage had been like and what their relationship as exes is like. Unorthodox pulls off something similar with Esty's family, her grandmother and aunt (the scene where the grandmother suffers a stroke and the aunt holds her has nothing to do with Esty and happens after she's left, it's unobserved by her, but it sums up this mother/daughter relationship in such a moving way), her alcoholic father, her mother, Leah, who left when Esty was a child and is now living in Berlin with her (female) partner.
It can be argued that Berlin is idealized (as opposed to Hasidic Williamsburg); Esty basically encounters only well-meaning people (even the student critiquing her piano playing and at one point making fun of her background, Israeli violinist Yael, doesn't mean it maliciously); it's Berlin, city of art, celebration of art and sexual liberation, not Berlin, city of drug dealers, gangsters and (alas) also not just dead Nazis. But you know: I've seen and read plenty of stories where the main character who dares to leave their home and makes it to the big city ends up drug-addicted, prostituted, beaten up or what not. Turns out I'm more than ready for a story where the main character does find the freedom and support she's hoped for and gets to achieve her dreams. And the miniseries is anything but oblivious to the sharp irony of Esty, whose grandmother had to flee the Holocaust as a child, finding this in the capital of Germany. There are reminders of the past in every episode; the first one ends at Wannsee, the lake who is a favourite leisure destination for Berliners since eons (Menschen am Sonntag, the 1929 silent movie shot by the Siodmak brothers, Edgar J. Ulmer and a young Billy (or as he still spelled himself then, Billie) Wilder, has it as a key location) - and which was the location for the infamous conference at which the so-called "Final Solution" was hammered out. As one of the young musician bringing this up casually (I cringed) points out, it's also where a lot of people tried to cross the German/German border and were shot. Esty is at first aghast the others swim in this lake; then she does so herself, making for the first episode's final visual, which is one of renewal and freedom, but very consciously surrounded by the past. (As Esty tells Moishe in the final episode, you carry your ghosts wherever you are.The idea of Esty as who Moishe doesn't have the courage to be anymore and Moishe as who Esty would be if she did return is also supported by the fact Moishe is the other character whom we see taking a bath in the Berlin waters; in his case, the Spree early in the morning.) It's not pointed out in dialogue, but almost the last we see of Esty in the last episode is also a (former) border crossing; after her conversation with Yanky, she walks through the Brandenburg Gate which used to separate West and East Berlin, having made her peace with her past, full of hope and determination. It's telling for this miniseries that while we get one more visual (Esty in the café spotting her friends arrive who will tell her wether or not she passed the audition, her excited face mirrored in the glass), it doesn't feel it has to spell this out.
(Incidentally: Esty's mother Leah, who like her left the Hasitic community behind without having any professional education to use, is in a way a counterpoint to Esty being lucky enough to encounter musicians willing to help her; Leah ended up with a more realistic job as nurse in an old people's home. But Leah's fate isn't depressing, either; she's in a happy relationship with her her lover. Oh, and with a big apartment which I presume her partner must have owned, because even for Berlin, which used to have low rents compared to other German cities, that would be pushing it.)
One criticism I've seen is that the miniseries doesn't show the Hasidic community Esty escapes from enjoying themselves and having fun - other than on her wedding -, thus providing the impression that it's gloom all the way, and not making it clear what the people in it get out of it emotionally and intellectually. I can see the "low on laughter" point, but: we're in Esty's pov through the flashback scenes, and in the present day scenes, when she's no longer there, everyone is anxious and upset about what might have become of her. Neither situation(s) lend themselves to showing the lighter side of the community. But otoh, I thought the point of being mutually supportive of each other comes across clear enough, though the constantly being in each other's private spaces is, of course, one of many things that eventually drives Esty to leave. And there's just no way you can spin the micromanaging of Esty's body by people other than herself as positive and stay true to the premise of the story. Otoh: the song with which Esty wins her new life for good in the final episode is a song from her old community, which she has learned there but could never have sung there, being a woman. Which sums up the way the miniseries presents her keeping her heritage but finding her own path.
All in all, I was impressed and moved by this miniseries, and will keep looking out for future work of everyone involved.
Now, on to the review. Unorthodox uses the credit "inspired by" rather than "based on" the memoirs of Deborah Feldman, which I thnk more productions should to, as it's usually more honest. Not having read the memoirs in question, I take it from a quick glance to the professional reviews that the main difference is that Deborah Feldman's leaving of the Hasidic community she was born into took far longer, and that the Berlin part of the story was more or less made up entirely, through Deborah Feldman did end up in Berlin. Which, fair enough: the main character in Unorthodox the tv miniseries is called Esty (for Esther), not Deborah, and fiction triggered by real events that becomes its own story has a long and fine tradition. (If occasionally a tragic one. Ask the Lwelleyn-Davies brothers.) I'm therefore basing my review simply on what is on screen, without a compare and contrast to the book which is still unknown to me.
First of all: hats off to both Shira Haas, who is stunningly good as the central character, Esty, and Maria Schrader, whom I've always liked as an actress (most recently in Deutschland 83 - Anna Winkler, who co-wrote Deutschland 83, is also one of the co-writers here) and whose second movie as a director, the Stefan Zweig biopic Vor der Morgenröte, had impressed me very much. The miniseries starts with Esty leaving/escaping her home, and through the rest of the four episodes moves in two timelines, her present day new life in Berlin and in flashbacks her old life in Wlliamsburg, Brooklyn, showing why she eventually left. About two thirds of the dialogue spoken is in Yiddish; the rest are smatterings of English and some German (not much, it's the least used of the on screen languages, which the script pulls off by making the new friends Esty finds in Berlin international music students who of course talk English to her). Now I've watched the occasional old Polish movie in Yiddish (The Dybbuk, most notably), but this is the first current day production where Yiddish is the main language used that I've seen, and it's fascinating to me to try and understand with as little glancing at the subtitles as I manage. As opposed to many a tv production where characters speak a few German sentences and sound incredibly stilted while being told they're fluent (no, not forgetting Highlander and Alias examples any time soon), the Yiddish here really sounds fluent to laywoman me, and the actors feel natural in it (though the professional reviews tell me they had to be trained by the man who plays the old Rabbi). But it's often not the spoken passages that make for the most emotional moments - one reason why Shira Haas impressed me so much is that you always feel there's so much going on in Esty despite her often not commenting out loud but listening (until there finally is an outburst), whether it's in the past or present actions.
The miniseries also more or less has no villain. Moishe, the cousin sent after Esty along with her husband, and her mother-in-law come closest, but the mother-in-law is more traditionally overbearing than anything else, and when Moishe in the final episode threatens Esty by telling her she won't be able to live outside the community, she'll want to go back, only then it will be too late, you get the sense he's talking of himself (for Moishe had left for a while and come back); he's portrayed as miserable in both worlds. Esty's husband, Yanky, is portrayed as well-meaning and gentle but utterly clueless, and basically a study of how due to the patriarchal system you're in you can with the best intentions of the world still oppress your wife and be part of her misery. One of the things I had liked about Vor der Morgenröte was how it managed to convey a lot about relationships other than the central one which made its world feel real; for example, Zweig's relationship with his first wife utterly comes to life in the segment devoted to her, and you feel you entirely know what their marriage had been like and what their relationship as exes is like. Unorthodox pulls off something similar with Esty's family, her grandmother and aunt (the scene where the grandmother suffers a stroke and the aunt holds her has nothing to do with Esty and happens after she's left, it's unobserved by her, but it sums up this mother/daughter relationship in such a moving way), her alcoholic father, her mother, Leah, who left when Esty was a child and is now living in Berlin with her (female) partner.
It can be argued that Berlin is idealized (as opposed to Hasidic Williamsburg); Esty basically encounters only well-meaning people (even the student critiquing her piano playing and at one point making fun of her background, Israeli violinist Yael, doesn't mean it maliciously); it's Berlin, city of art, celebration of art and sexual liberation, not Berlin, city of drug dealers, gangsters and (alas) also not just dead Nazis. But you know: I've seen and read plenty of stories where the main character who dares to leave their home and makes it to the big city ends up drug-addicted, prostituted, beaten up or what not. Turns out I'm more than ready for a story where the main character does find the freedom and support she's hoped for and gets to achieve her dreams. And the miniseries is anything but oblivious to the sharp irony of Esty, whose grandmother had to flee the Holocaust as a child, finding this in the capital of Germany. There are reminders of the past in every episode; the first one ends at Wannsee, the lake who is a favourite leisure destination for Berliners since eons (Menschen am Sonntag, the 1929 silent movie shot by the Siodmak brothers, Edgar J. Ulmer and a young Billy (or as he still spelled himself then, Billie) Wilder, has it as a key location) - and which was the location for the infamous conference at which the so-called "Final Solution" was hammered out. As one of the young musician bringing this up casually (I cringed) points out, it's also where a lot of people tried to cross the German/German border and were shot. Esty is at first aghast the others swim in this lake; then she does so herself, making for the first episode's final visual, which is one of renewal and freedom, but very consciously surrounded by the past. (As Esty tells Moishe in the final episode, you carry your ghosts wherever you are.The idea of Esty as who Moishe doesn't have the courage to be anymore and Moishe as who Esty would be if she did return is also supported by the fact Moishe is the other character whom we see taking a bath in the Berlin waters; in his case, the Spree early in the morning.) It's not pointed out in dialogue, but almost the last we see of Esty in the last episode is also a (former) border crossing; after her conversation with Yanky, she walks through the Brandenburg Gate which used to separate West and East Berlin, having made her peace with her past, full of hope and determination. It's telling for this miniseries that while we get one more visual (Esty in the café spotting her friends arrive who will tell her wether or not she passed the audition, her excited face mirrored in the glass), it doesn't feel it has to spell this out.
(Incidentally: Esty's mother Leah, who like her left the Hasitic community behind without having any professional education to use, is in a way a counterpoint to Esty being lucky enough to encounter musicians willing to help her; Leah ended up with a more realistic job as nurse in an old people's home. But Leah's fate isn't depressing, either; she's in a happy relationship with her her lover. Oh, and with a big apartment which I presume her partner must have owned, because even for Berlin, which used to have low rents compared to other German cities, that would be pushing it.)
One criticism I've seen is that the miniseries doesn't show the Hasidic community Esty escapes from enjoying themselves and having fun - other than on her wedding -, thus providing the impression that it's gloom all the way, and not making it clear what the people in it get out of it emotionally and intellectually. I can see the "low on laughter" point, but: we're in Esty's pov through the flashback scenes, and in the present day scenes, when she's no longer there, everyone is anxious and upset about what might have become of her. Neither situation(s) lend themselves to showing the lighter side of the community. But otoh, I thought the point of being mutually supportive of each other comes across clear enough, though the constantly being in each other's private spaces is, of course, one of many things that eventually drives Esty to leave. And there's just no way you can spin the micromanaging of Esty's body by people other than herself as positive and stay true to the premise of the story. Otoh: the song with which Esty wins her new life for good in the final episode is a song from her old community, which she has learned there but could never have sung there, being a woman. Which sums up the way the miniseries presents her keeping her heritage but finding her own path.
All in all, I was impressed and moved by this miniseries, and will keep looking out for future work of everyone involved.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-28 08:12 am (UTC)Also lots of thanks for the addidtional infos on Vor der Morgenröte.
As for actors sounding as if they were fluent in Yiddish: At least one member of the main cast actually is native speaker level fluent in real life, Jeff Wilbush, who portrays Moishe and whose biography reads like a male real life version of Esty's fictional one.
(Wilbusch talks a little bit about this in the rather watch-worthy making of that is also available on Netflix.)
no subject
Date: 2020-08-28 11:28 am (UTC)Vor der Morgenröte is of course very sad - you know what happens to Zweig and his second wife - but compellingly made.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-28 09:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-28 10:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-28 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-28 02:30 pm (UTC)I didn't know there was a miniseries! It sounds amazing.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-28 02:33 pm (UTC)The miniseries is on Netflix, if you have it.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-28 02:36 pm (UTC)From the outset, Trump loathed Merkel. She represents everything he is not. On the international stage, she respects interlocutors who do their preparation and don’t spring surprises. She disdains his visceral vulgarity. The leader who let in a million of the world’s most destitute in 2015 refuses to be cowed by a bigot and bully.
She couldn’t be accused of not trying to get along. In March 2017, two months into his administration, she flew to Washington for their first meeting. She prepped assiduously. She studied a 1990 Playboy interview that had become a set text on Trumpism for policymakers. She read his 1987 book, The Art of the Deal. She even watched episodes of his TV show, The Apprentice.
OMG, I loathe everything, absolutely every single freaking thing, about Cheetolini but I am so charmed by Merkel assiduously prepping to the extent of watching his stupid fucking show. <3
no subject
Date: 2020-08-28 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-08 11:51 am (UTC)