Movie Review: 'Fill the Void' -- 4 stars
Fill the Void
4 stars
Directed by Rama Burshtein
Starring Hadas Yaron, Irit Sheleg, Yiftach Klein
Rated PG
In Hebrew with English subtitles
Opens Friday at the Landmark Sunshine and Angelika
“Fill the Void” takes place almost exclusively inside a small apartment in Tel Aviv’s ultra-Orthodox community. It explores a segment of religious Jewish culture that will seem foreign to many, with the only hints of the secular world materializing in sounds heard outside the home.
And yet, this meticulously composed, highly specific movie simultaneously has profound universal appeal. Filmmaker Rama Burshtein, a major new talent, concentrates on the emotional truths behind the unfamiliar exterior. She relies on evocative close-ups and quiet conversations to tell the story of a young woman facing an extraordinary burden.
Shira (Hadas Yaron) is a fiercely independent 18-year-old trapped in a world that doesn’t really allow for her type. There’s an expectation that she will marry — and soon. The pressure gets much stronger when her sister dies during childbirth, and her mother (Irit Sheleg) decides that she should wed her brother-in-law (Yiftach Klein) to keep him from moving away.
The protagonist is not your everyday, clichéd rebel. She loves her family, believes in God and is hardly prone to sprint from the community. A lesser filmmaker would have condescended to the character and her world, but Burshtein, an Orthodox woman herself, treats it with abiding respect.
The treatment allows for the movie to escape storytelling clichés, and to instead focus on the serious torment that comes from being faced with the impossible choice of betraying your own best interests or those of your family. The movie is centered on that anguish; every moment, from scenes of singing at the dinner table through hushed living room conversations, emanates from it. The dark shadows and pockets of white light that define the still, crowded rooms of the apartment further enhance the sense of life-changing events happening in this small space, tucked away from the world at large.
Yaron makes full use of her deep, beautiful eyes and compassionate face, often seen cloaked in shadows or silently observing the people around her, to externalize that inner sadness. But the movie isn’t purely a glum exercise. It’s the story of a woman on a journey of self-discovery, confronting a personal crisis and making informed, wrenching decisions to resolve it. There’s a lot of hope and joy, too, in one of the year’s best films.
Everything you need to know about Election Day and more from NewsdayTV
Everything you need to know about Election Day and more from NewsdayTV