SFJFF: Odessa . . . Odessa! (with Yelena's Story)
Odessa . . . Odessa! is a beautiful piece of film -- it takes you to places that are haunting, joyful, and wistful. Mostly, though, this journey from Odessa, Ukraine to Brighton Beach, N.Y. to Ashdod, Israel imparts the feeling that something's missing -- that the lives the film is showing us are somehow incomplete.
The film, director Michale Boganim's look at Jews from Odessa, premiered at Sundance last winter. The narrative begins in the Ukranian city. The music starts off early -- indeed, the joy in performance and music are common themes throughout all the movie's subjects, as are themes of togetherness, or the lack thereof.
"I miss my community; all of us together," is one of the quotes from right out of the gate.
In Brighton Beach and Israel we have similar sentiments, except that much of the longing and nostalgia are for Odessa itself. Odessa, to the folks that left it, seems to represent a wonderful or magical time in their lives, one that can never be regained. Their longing is contrasted with the reality of the broken-down city we're shown in the film.
While the individual storylines shown in this documentary are interesting (we particularly liked the ex-boxer during the Brighton Beach segments), we sort of felt like the movie was hitting us over the head, both with its general themes and with its poetic imagery; the transitions between locales were represented with water, boats; it almost felt like "meaning" was being artificially injected into the film at times, both through these framing mechanisms and some more overly indulgent scenes (the scene with a palm reader struck us as sort of gratuitously pitiful). Despite these minor criticisms, we believe that Odessa . . . Odessa! really is a fine film, well worth the 93-minute investment should you have the opportunity to view it.
Yelena's Story was a short film (12 minutes) that preceded Odessa . . . Odessa!; it was described ot the audience as a "work in progress." It's a film created by the teenage participants of the SJFF's own New Jewish Filmmaking Project, and produced by Citizen Film. It would have been almost better to see it after the first film; this short documentary of a smart, vibrant, teenaged Ukranian emigre serves as a positive counterpoint to the hollow feelings evoked in Odessa . . . Odessa!.
The short is simply Yelena Shuster talking with her grandparents (alternating the maternal and paternal sets), with a few slices of her life (chatting with friends, in the kitchen with one grandmother, etc.) interspersed. The interviews are where the film really shines; the grandparents' hopes for Yelena and how close-knit the family is just jump off the screen. Particularly amusing--and really at the heart of the issues being examined--are Yelena's slip-ups when it comes to using Russian. She actually asks one grandfather at one point why he never corrects her. His response is priceless--consider that a teaser. Go see this work done by local kids if or when you get a chance.