The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

THE SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

Sf/castro july 24-31

Sf/jccsf/august 2-3,9-20

Berkeley/august 2-9

Palo alto/august 2-7

San Rafael/august 9-11

sfjff.org/ 925 275 9490

I have always loved the Jewish Film Festival because it offers so much variety and an immense scope of interesting topics to think about. Each selection digs into issues that go far beyond the Jewish condition even as it reflects Jews in today’s world and the past that created that world. It is impossible to review all these fine films for you because each has individual appeal to particular interests and so I am going to concentrate on the one I loved best, EMOTIONAL ARITHMETIC.

Too many people tell us that the holocaust is in the past and is over and done. I know it will never end. I have seen how its victims create fear in their children, and they in turn in their children and the insecurity, the fierce protectiveness, the searing fear only intensifies like the ripples caused when you throw a pebble into the water. I still remember those survivors who came to Toledo, Ohio after World War II wasted and torn, their faith in themselves and humanity destroyed. They had no god, they had no belief that life could ever hold goodness again.

It takes an immense effort of will to rebuild yourself into a functioning human being after a de-humanizing experience such as Bergen Belsen or Auschwitz. To this day, I see the worn faces of a couple I met who survived the camps, returned to Czechoslovakia, endured the Communists in Prague and walked out of their country to freedom. They eventually moved to my city and apparent suburban security. But they never slept a night through for fear that there would be a knock on the door, a stone thrown through a window, an explosion that would destroy everything they had managed to achieve. There would never be peace of mind for them. Ever,

This movie explores the wounds of holocaust survivors like those I met…wounds that fester and never heal. The plot is neither clichéd or maudlin. It does not ignite and inflame the guilt we all feel in the back of our minds because we as a human race allowed this travesty to happen

Instead, it is the story of Melanie Winters (Susan Sarandon) and the fierce struggle she has made to move forward out of the prison of her memories. She is not a whole person and can never be again after her experiences as a child in Drancy, the French transit camp outside Paris.

I do not want to tell you how this plot develops but I do want to emphasize the importance of not just the story, but the beautiful filming of this woman and her desperate attempt to hang on to any reality she can. This is a beautiful drama of love and memory adapted from the novel by Matt Cohen directed by Paolo Barzman with a true artist’s touch.

Emotional Arithmetic is an exquisite film both in what it says, what it shows and what it means to all of us in a decaying planet with dubious morals and ever escalating inhumanity to man.

I have no doubt the rest of the offerings in this festival are equally compelling. For the schedule, go to www.sfjff.org or phone the box office, 925 275 9490. There is something for every taste in this festival from documentaries about heavy metal music to features that shed light on the ongoing struggle for peace, security, friendship and love in the Middle East. There is plenty of comedy of course…how could it not contain laughter and tears. It is after all a JEWISH film festival.

Check out the website; find a film you love and enjoy.