WinterFest Feb. 25-26, 2023 San Francisco (Jewish Film Institute)

[Chris Knipp]

BARREN (Mordechai Vardi)

Back to the curiously cinematic world of Ultra-Orthodox Jews. A twenty-something Heredi couple in Safed, unable to conceive children, find their lives upended in this provocative drama about faith and sexual exploitation. After husband Naftali (Yovat Rothman) travels to Ukraine during Rosh Hashanah to pray for a child, his wife, Feigi ((Mili Eshet), is left alone with her in-laws, who invite Elijah (Gil Frank), a homeless rabbi met at the synagogue, to their house for the Rosh Hashanah holiday. Claiming to be a healer of barren women, Elijah convinces Feigi to undergo his "treatment." We can guess what it is. And then the elders must decide how to deal with this situation: has she been raped? The Jewish analysis of this plot is concerned with the religious aspects more than the psychological ones. But what about the fact that Naftali, the sweet young husband, might be the one responsible for Feigi's failure to conceive? And the rambling rabbi "healer" - might he not make her pregnant, if he weren't so old? There is plenty of serious stuff here and the cast, cinematography, mise-en-scène and editing are all fine if you accept that in the Heredi world things tend to move deliberately. The director is a rabbi, a documentarian, and the director of a screenwriting school. Other cast members are good, especially Frank, as the disreputable "healing" rabbi, and Ilanit Ben-Yaakov, as the mother-in-law.