It’s a good week for exploring your mystical side in the contemplative darkness of a movie theater.
If “Bee Season” in all its accomplishments remains too secular for your tastes, and Richard Gere isn’t one of your three wise men, then try “Ushpizin,” an enriching glimpse into one of Jerusalem’s most Orthodox neighborhoods. Amid intense teachings of Hasidic tenets that all life challenges are a test from God, the surprise is a warm and funny relationship movie that should win your heart.
Religion is more than a plot device in “Ushpizin.” It is the whole movie. We are dropped straight into a community where reverence for God is a given. But “Ushpizin” is far from formal: These are Jews who have a running conversation with their maker, unlimited roaming cellphone minutes to heaven. All thanks be to God, definitely, but the prayers are not inked onto a parchment scroll – one of the leading couple’s favorite prayers is, “I owe you big-time.”
Moshe (Shuli Rand) is a poor, middle-aged Yeshiva student who gave up a shady past for true religion and a good wife. A sense of blessed anticipation permeates his cramped, dusty neighborhood as everyone prepares for Sukkot. The festival honors the flight from Egypt, and is a glorious camp-out in the backyard – in Moshe’s case, everyone wants to build a tiny plywood shack on the street outside their apartments, and eat and sleep there for a week.
But Moshe has no shekels for even a prized lemon, let alone a whole camping shack. His beloved wife Mali (Michal Bat Sheva Rand) is understanding, but only to a point. Moshe quotes a friend who says prayers are answered, then says he’s exhausted and wants to sleep. Mali helpfully suggests he should pray for a miracle involving cash, rather than sleep, if he believes his friend.
The cash arrives, part of an Orthodox tradition of anonymous gifts to the needy. And a sukkah shack arrives, through a resourceful and opportunistic friend. But so does trouble – two escaped convicts who knew Moshe in the bad old days arrive to share their Sukkot feast, and see no reason to leave during a festival honoring uninvited guests.
Just when you’ve changed something in yourself for the better, you get more tests, says the sympathetic local rabbi. He reminds Moshe of a key rule of Hasidic philosophy: “No rest in this world.”
The criminal duo provides a balancing sense of menace to the rich, loving relationship of Moshe and Mali. They will either do something awful, or bring out the legendary wrath of the pre-Yeshiva Moshe, and the cramped walls of the sukkah raise the tension.
“Some test it would have been if they were nice guests,” Mali says with a shrug. Later, Moshe says to no one in particular, “There’s only God. And he has his reasons.” Indeed. With “Ushpizin,” he also has his movie – let’s hope he also has a sense of humor.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
*** | “Ushpizin”
PG for some mature subject matter|1 hour, 31 minutes|DRAMA|Directed by Gidi Dar, in Hebrew with subtitles; written by Shuli Rand and Amit Yasur; starring Shuli Rand, Michal Bat Sheva Rand, Shaul Mizrahi and Ilan Gannai|Opens today at Landmark’s Chez Artiste theater.
