Grieving and healing

BASYA LAYE

Heartbreak – the kind that comes from learning, loving, introspection, loss, grief and hope. That's the theme that connects three of the documentaries screening at this year's Vancouver Jewish Film Festival.

The World Was Ours, directed by Mira Jedwabnik Van Doren and narrated by Mandy Patinkin, is an astonishing documentation of life in Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania), immediately before the Holocaust. I have often left screenings of Holocaust films feeling cheated – forced into experiencing the physicality of the loss, the violence of the loss, but not having been given the opportunity to grieve the loss. We know how they died. But how did they live? What was lost? It seems to me only then, can we grieve with depth and have the fortitude required for healing.

This film is different. The archival film footage, photographs, songs and poems allow a singular glimpse into Jewish life there. The survivors and academics interviewed describe the richness of Jewish life there prior to the war, in spite of the city's shifting allegiances and schizophrenic identity, brought on by the panic of shifting borders, as Vilna was won and lost on the battlefields between Ukraine, Poland and Russia.

They describe a vibrant city filled with artists, actors, union leaders, political thinkers, musicians, doctors of medicine, poets, teachers, great sages and talmudic geniuses – home of the Vilna Gaon. They recount the attempts to keep that richness intact as Jews were forced into the ghetto, as the city that they loved turned against them. These stories of resistance, passive and active, are full of pride and are deeply inspiring.

And, then, this life is over. This film is an acknowledgment of the enormity of the loss experienced by the Jewish people – the loss of life, creativity, spirituality, greatness. When the Vilna ghetto is cleared, the tragedy is palpable and the tragedy devastating.

Four Seasons Lodge is a story about loss and survival. The lodge is a summer colony in New York state's famous Catskill Mountains, populated entirely by a group of Holocaust survivors who travel each year to the resort to connect, share, love, laugh, question and remember. The film takes place during the last summer at Four Seasons, when the colony has been sold and the residents are reliving the decades of summers spent together comforted by their friendships and families.

The movie opens with the campers' arrivals and scenes of the elderly caretaker unlocking the bungalows. The scenes are slow and meandering, but allow the viewer to get to know the campers informally, watching how husbands and wives and longtime friends interact before delving into their stories.

Filmed by a team of cinematographers, led by Albert Maysles of Grey Gardens and Gimme Shelter fame, the movie is a gentle and empathic look at the lasting effects of trauma and the resilience of these survivors. Fran Lask, 82, and a survivor of Bergen-Belsen, sums up the sentiment expressed by many of the lodgers: "This is our revenge on Hitler. To live this long, this well, is a victory."

The idea for the film emerged after director Andrew Jacobs did a series about summer life in the Catskills for the New York Times. In promotional materials, Jacobs said, "As the world continues to grapple with war and genocide, we think audiences will embrace this astonishing tribe of survivors who have found a way to find joy in life despite having endured unimaginable atrocity."

Flipping Out is another meditation on the impact of trauma, as viewers are transported to India, along with the throngs of young Israelis who choose that country as the perfect spot to unwind and decompress after their military service.

Israeli documentary filmmaker Yoav Shamir has not been afraid to court controversy in his previous films, Defamation and Checkpoint. Here, he follows groups of young Israelis from the Himalayas in northern India to Goa in the south, exploring the phenomenon known as "flipping out," an Israeli colloquialism for experiencing a drug-induced psychosis.

After their army service, soldiers are offered a discharge bonus that many use to travel, very often to India. Without the familiar anchors of family and their army base, many of these young men and women seem to be drifting, losing themselves in the all-night beach raves and decadent drug-fuelled days of their travel. The film cites a 90 percent statistic as the percentage of young Israelis who use drugs during their Indian sojourn. Here is an altogether different form of survival, and I couldn't help but flash, ever so briefly, on Golda Meir's (in)famous quote, "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children."

Many of these young people appear to be searching – for spiritual mooring, a profound sense of morality, safety, depth of understanding and for redemption. They flock to the local Israeli "warm houses," where they can congregate, with some of the creature comforts of home available. Funded by the Israeli government, the warm houses provide a place to sing Israeli folk songs or watch an Israeli movie. The travelers also congregate at the Orthodox Chabad Houses that have sprung up, places in which they would never step foot at home. Chabad encourages these visitors to experience their Judaism, availing them of the opportunity to ask profound questions on the nature of the soul and explore their belief in God.

Some have a hard time battling their demons and drugs provide just the right amount of cold comfort until the unlucky are unable to withstand the assault on their psyches and move into full-blown psychosis. The film starts with the rescue of one such young man. Interventions are staged by a Chabad shaliach with the hired-help offered by Hilik, a former Mossad agent turned enforcer and rescuer of young Israelis.

In his interviews with the Israeli, Shamir asks about their army service – whether they think their actions in the army were justified, if they feel at all guilty. He attempts to frame these flip outs and the rampant drug use as the "flip side" of army service. There is a heavy hint of accusation when one of the interviewees questions the Israeli government's decision to offer the discharge bonus with the knowledge that these kids will use it to go wild and abuse drugs. He implies that the Israeli government sends these kids away knowing that they may not be psychologically sound. Then, when they come back to Israel, it's a warm, nostalgic place of welcome, of family, a real home, not a place of war, violence and grief.

The Vancouver Jewish Film Festival opens Oct. 31 at the Ridge Theatre. Visit vjff.org.

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