The "Shtisel" series & "Felix and Meira"

Where did my heart go to?
The Shtisel family or the Felix and Meira?

The first one indeed!
First, the difference comes from the background of the directors.
Shtisel is an Israeli series by Jewish filmmakers, and Felix and Meira is a Canadian movie by a non Jewish filmmaker.

I observed the details with a lot of attention as you know.

Paris Le Marais on a Sunday afternoon, August 2015, ©emmarubinstein

Felix and Meira by Maxime Giroux
Some of my French friends recommended me too. They liked it. And i understood why now.
I can't say that i dislike it but i felt that something missed.
There are mistakes in the observance of the religion.
I read the credits thinking hopefully that it was based on a true story. But not! I don't forget that it's a movie of 105 minutes, not a documentary.
All the scenes have been shot during a winter and the story lasts that winter: short time for that kind of story. Someone who wants to leave the community will take more time in the time space and in the psychological space. The Jewishness will inhabits them a long time.

I read an interview of the filmmaker on a French website.
He said that he was more in the observation side than in the speech. According to him, and i believe him for that, Canadians from Québec are more into unspoken words than into thoughts and speech.
I found that with the New Yorkers too. And i could not adapt myself to that culture.
That's hard to criticize what we call in anthropology, the cultural relativism. Thus you take it or leave it.
You already know my decision.

I needed to see something more psychological with answers to my eternal questions.
And it missed something Jewish too.
The filmmaker added that his bias came from Felix, the goy. He had a sort of naivety. He saw him like a hipster. I saw him like a loser. His life is empty, he has no passions, no emotions, nobody to take care of.
She seems like an entertainment in his empty life for him. He is not mean with her fortunately.
I wished that his patience with her will help him to understand himself and why he can be attracted to someone who is at the opposite of himself.

The filmmaker said that he was scared of failing the Jewish observance scenes until the last minute. He chose an actor who left the community. I knew him, not personally, but because one day, a Hasidic sent me photos of him, pretending that he was him. He was gross and vulgar, and disappeared after i threw him away.
He added that the movie by John Turturro was not well prepared. I agreed about the lack of Hasidic culture in that movie.

There is something shallow which can talk to anyone who never found interest in Hasidic culture and i don't blame it for that.
There is something that i like at the end of the movie: her relationship with her wig. You can see the gap between us, and what's next? No answers.
To leave someone who you didn't communicate with, to go with someone who don't communicate ever  can be a good choice if you don't want to think… Most of Hasidim that i have met were looking for a non emotional relationship and didn't want to talk about the pain to be
The "non-shomer-ization" or how to learn to touch someone of the opposite sex without thinking of something sexual. How do you accept to show your body to others…? All those points that i wanted to see.

One take off shoe, Paris Le Marais on a Sunday afternoon, August 2015, ©emmarubinstein

Shitsel by Alon Zingman
12 episodes and i am looking forward to seeing a season 2.
The action takes place in Yerushalayim in an ultra-Orthodox family where the eldest son, Akiva, wants to get married with someone he loves. He accepts the game of the arranged marriage and meets young women. He falls in love with an older woman who is a widow twice. A series with humor, especially with the grand-mother who finds out TV and its American soap series. She felt compassion for the characters and forgets to read her psalms.
Akiva's father is an old bitter and selfish man. His selfishness hurts people and he doesn't see it, except with his son.
What it's shown is the difference of generations and the way to see love like something needed for Akiva and something non essential for his father. His wife was there to take care of him and his stomach. He is shown like someone asexual, where the food takes the place of the food.
He is gross with the ladies. He can't catch signs of love coming from someone else. The ladies remain polite and don't dare to confront him.
The other characters that i liked a lot are Akiva's sister, her husband and her daughter. That's not only the relationship to the religion but how to talk about your pain to be in a relation that you don't want anymore. Ultra-Orthodox always thinks that Hashem and the representatives like the rabbis can help. In this case, they close the wife in denial. Her husband asks for communication as a liberation of his sins. His daughter is a rebel and she doesn't have enough experience of life to understand what her father has done. His father will put words on his pain in a very moving scene in his daughter's room.

I am writing my letter for a demand for a conversion in France. It has to be a handwritten letter and i like having pain in my hand. I would like to be a little mouse to read all the conversion letters that the Consistory receives.
Sometimes, friends can surprise me. My mother talked to a friend about my desire to get converted and told her that i was learning Hebrew. She is not Jewish, but she found that so great and was not surprised at all by me. I felt that my mom too was surprised that someone who is not my mother was more supportive than her. :-)

Shul, rue Pavée, Paris Le Marais on a Sunday afternoon, August 2015, ©emmarubinstein