fri 11/10/2024

Jewish culture

Love and Other Acts of Violence, Donmar Warehouse review - snappy and tightly intelligent but flawed

This is simultaneously a love story and an archaeology of hate, a sparky, spiky encounter between two individuals whose chemistry proves as destructive as it is explosive.Love and Other Acts of Violence opens with a comedic encounter on a dance...

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Ridley Road, BBC One review - Jewish community fights Nazi nightmare in 1960s London

Neo-Nazis held a Trafalgar Square rally under the banner "Free Britain from Jewish Control" in the year of my birth; I had no idea until I watched Ridley Road. Most of us know about the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, but, until now, next to nothing...

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Marcin Wicha: Things I Didn’t Throw Out review - the stories told by stacks of stuff

Marcin Wicha’s mother Joanna never talked about her death. A Jewish counsellor based in an office built on top of the rubble of the Warsaw Ghetto, her days were consumed by work and her passion for shopping. Only once did she refer to her passing,...

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DVD/Blu-ray: Mr Klein

Joseph Losey’s career covered a great deal of ground, and several continents. From The Boy with the Green Hair, a noirish sci-fi film from 1948, through to his richly psychological collaborations with Harold Pinter, The Servant (1963), Accident (...

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Misha and the Wolves review - tricksy documentary about a child survivor

It has become so hard to find funding for non-fiction films that many documentary makers now feel compelled to sell their stories as racy detective yarns, larded with dramatic scores and sneakily obfuscating narratives. There’s a piece of deception...

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Shiva Baby review - sex, lies and rugelach

Comedian Rachel Sennott stars as Danielle, a conflicted, bisexual twenty-something college student who's taking money she doesn't really need from a sugar daddy who isn't who she thinks he is. Emma Seligman’s debut feature, which began as a short in...

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Persian Lessons review - confusing Holocaust drama

This is an odd film, made even odder by a caption near the beginning, which claims it is "inspired by true events" but doesn’t elaborate. Produced in Belarus, it’s a Holocaust drama based on a novella by the veteran East German screenwriter/director...

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Nicole Krauss: To Be a Man review - first short-story collection from the award-winning novelist

Tamar, a character in “The Husband”, one of the most appealing, joyful stories in Nicole Krauss’s new collection To Be a Man, spends summers with her feisty mother in Tel Aviv, leaving her New York apartment in the care of a house sitter. When she...

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Rose, Hope Mill Theatre online review - a performer at her peak

Solo plays and performances are, of necessity, the theatrical currency of the moment, whether across an entire season at the Bridge Theatre or last week at the Old Vic in the too briefly glimpsed Three Kings, starring a rarely-better Andrew Scott....

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An American Pickle review - sweet and sour screwball comedy

Seth Rogen offers up double the laughs by taking on both lead roles in a time-hopping, Rip-Van-Winkle screwball comedy, but with an oddly mixed conservative message about the merits of family and religion.The screenplay is based on a four-...

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DVD/Blu-ray: Distant Journey

Czech director Alfréd Radok’s Distant Journey (Daleká cesta) has an unprecedented place in the history of cinema of the Holocaust. Initially released in March 1949, it has been called the first fictional treatment of the Jewish experience during the...

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The Last Five Years, Southwark Playhouse review - an inspired actor-musician take on a cult classic

There’s concept on top of concept in this revival of Jason Robert Brown’s beloved 2001 musical, which charts the ebb and flow of a relationship by juggling timelines: aspiring actress Cathy’s story is told in reverse chronological order, while...

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