{"id":20759,"date":"2016-09-09T00:40:42","date_gmt":"2016-09-09T07:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=20759"},"modified":"2016-09-07T12:50:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-07T19:50:00","slug":"melancholic-adaptation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2016\/09\/09\/melancholic-adaptation\/","title":{"rendered":"Melancholic adaptation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Natalie Portman in a scene from the film A Tale of Love and Darkness<\/em>. (photo by Ran Mendelson\/Focus Features via houstonchronicle.com<\/a>)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A Tale of Love and Darkness<\/em> may seem like a nondescript and even coyly evasive title, but in fact it expresses the essence of Natalie Portman\u2019s textured film of Amos Oz\u2019s book.<\/p>\n

An unfailingly sensitive though necessarily compressed adaptation of Oz\u2019s acclaimed 2004 memoir, the movie portrays Oz\u2019s nurturing yet fraught childhood with his immigrant parents in Jerusalem in the years just before and after the declaration of the state of Israel.<\/p>\n

In the film, Amos possesses both character and potential, but there are rocks in the path of every promising child. Almost every frame of A Tale of Love and Darkness<\/em> is imbued with a brooding, ominous tension that derives in various measure from Old Country suffering, the nascent nation\u2019s Holocaust trauma and Amos\u2019 mother\u2019s depression.<\/p>\n

Shot in a hard-edged, anti-nostalgic palette of black and green, the story unfolds in a constrained world where both the past and the future exert immense weight on the present. That said, Portman infuses her richly engrossing feature directorial debut with welcome dashes of poetry and humor.<\/p>\n

Amos (Amir Tessler) is an exceedingly smart and empathetic child, instilled with a love of books and words by his academic father Arieh (Gilad Kahana) and an appreciation for the allusive power of fables by his quietly adoring mother Fania (Portman).<\/p>\n

Because the viewer (likely) knows that Amos will grow up to be a great writer, we immediately presume that Arieh is his primary influence. In one of the film\u2019s most rewarding turns, we come to realize that Amos received the gift for storytelling from his mother.<\/p>\n

Amos doesn\u2019t make that connection either, until much later. Even an observant child can\u2019t recognize or understand the import of most events as they happen, whether they are as familiar as his paternal grandmother\u2019s perennial disapproval of Fania or as dangerous as foraging for empty bottles on the outskirts of Jerusalem during the War of Independence.<\/p>\n

Although Fania, Arieh and Amos are tightly connected, they also inhabit private universes. Arieh is subsumed by his goal of being a popular scholarly author, first reveling in the publication of his esoteric debut and gradually frustrated by the reality of his modest place in the world.<\/p>\n

Fania\u2019s inner life is deeply mysterious, with dark memories of her youth in Poland alternating with curious dreams, or fantasies. She has a recurring vision of a hunky, sandy-haired kibbutznik, a \u201cnew Jew\u201d and the diametric opposite of her husband, who is a spiritual descendant of the yeshivah bochers of the shtetl.<\/p>\n

Amos, who was born in Jerusalem \u2013 as was Portman, more than four decades later \u2013 tries to make sense of everything, from the late-night United Nations vote for the partition of Palestine and the creation of Israel, to the Neanderthal schoolyard bullies who take his sandwich, to his mother\u2019s catatonic fugues.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s guiding light, Amos navigates this terrain with uncommon aplomb and resourcefulness. The impact of A Tale of Love and Darkness<\/em>, though, is in its evocation of the currents of memory, sorrow, dread and pride that swirl through Jerusalem\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n

The elderly Amos (voiced by Moni Moshonov), a welcome albeit melancholy presence, provides occasional, wise narration about his city, as well as his parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cJerusalem,\u201d he muses at one point, \u201cis a black widow who devours her lovers while they are still inside her.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a metaphor, yes, but it could be a synopsis for a parable that Fania might tell Amos. Ultimately, A Tale of Love and Darkness<\/em> is about the power \u2013 and the limits \u2013 of stories to change our lives.<\/p>\n

A Tale of Love and Darkness<\/em> (in Hebrew with English subtitles) opened last week at Fifth Avenue Cinemas.<\/p>\n

Michael Fox<\/strong> is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Natalie Portman in a scene from the film A Tale of Love and Darkness. (photo by Ran Mendelson\/Focus Features via houstonchronicle.com) A Tale of Love and Darkness may seem like a nondescript and even coyly evasive title, but in fact it expresses the essence of Natalie Portman\u2019s textured film of Amos Oz\u2019s book. An unfailingly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[787],"tags":[6285,672,4330,6284],"class_list":["post-20759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-film","tag-adaptations","tag-amos-oz","tag-israel","tag-portman"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}