A moving inquest into faith and family
The Israeli film "My Father My Lord" packs a wallop far out of proportion to its running time (brief), its pace (poetically slow), and the events it depicts (minor, for the most part). Out of the slenderest of materials, writer-director David Volach has created a drama that, in retrospect, feels positively biblical.
Not surprisingly, the father of the title is named Abraham (Assi Dayan), and one of the first things we hear on the soundtrack is the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. Far from an Old Testament thunderer, Rabbi Abraham is a profoundly compassionate man who looks upon his small family with reverence and love. Leader of his ultra-Orthodox community in a rundown Tel Aviv neighborhood, he dispenses thoughtful Torah commentary to his flock and tenderness to his wife, Esther (Sharon Hacohen-Bar), and young son, Menahem (Ilan Griff).
"My Father My Lord" views this hermetic world through the eyes of the boy, who's still young enough to wonder at everything he sees. Volach and cinematographer Boaz Yehonatan Yaacov create a child's glowing garden of miracles among the aging buildings and ranks of worshippers.
The film's point, quietly but insistently embedded into the narrative, is that Menahem is as yet too young to judge where his father's faith comes into conflict with this natural world. Through tiny revelations, we come to understand that the devotion that sustains the Rabbi also blinds him. His dictum that animals have no souls stands in contrast to the whimpering dog Menahem sees jumping into an ambulance to lie next to its stricken owner; the Torah's commandment to "send the mother bird from her children" forces the Rabbi to shoo a dove from her nest, dooming her chicks.
The filmmaker was raised in a Hasidic community and left in his 20s; "My Father My Lord" is thus an act of unstinting criticism leavened by understanding and love. Dayan (an Israeli acting powerhouse and the son of Moshe Dayan) suggests the unyielding patriarch behind the gentle father, and his tragedy isn't that he adores his family the less but God the more. He can only come to this world through Torah; asking why isn't ever on the table.
Volach views these weighty issues through the littlest details. "My Father My Lord" unfolds at a patient, observant rhythm that will exasperate some viewers, but there's nothing funereal about it. Rather, the movie slows life down until we can see everything the Rabbi misses. The score pulses with nearly ambient violin and piano melodies - the soundtrack of a dreamy yet watchful boy. For all the length and silence of many of the scenes, not a shot feels wasted.
In this hushed atmosphere, small acts of violence seem volcanic: a broken window, a prayer book falling from a balcony, a plastic bag spilling a fish onto the sand. "My Father My Lord" bears similarities to "Thou Shalt Have No Other God But Me," the first in Krzysztof Kieslowski's monumental "Decalogue" series, but in fact Volach's message is harsher: What's dangerous here isn't errant faith but all faith. The good Rabbi's sin is to mistake the worshipping for the worshipped.
Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com. For more on movies, go to boston.com/movienation.
