'The Matchmaker.' Stirs emotions
צילום: סיון גליקמן
'The Matchmaker' speaks of love and loss
Quiet Israeli film, currently playing in Canada, pays homage to courage of Holocaust survivors
"The Matchmaker", written and directed by Avi Nesher, is a gentle film, one that stirs deep emotions and delves into bittersweet themes of love and loss.
The film introduces us to Arik Bernstein, a boy coming of age in Haifa, Israel, in 1968. He is a product of the new Israel, he is confident and tanned, smart and unhindered by his father’s devastating past.
When Arik is introduced to Yankel Bride, an old school mate of his father’s from Romania, he is suddenly thrust into the underbelly of Haifa society, the one teeming with black-marketeers, prostitutes and Holocaust survivors who have nowhere else to go.
As Arik tries to navigate his own world, falling in love with his best friend’s cousin and reconciling the tragic past of his father who is a survivor himself, Arik learns that all is not as it seems in his sleepy seaside town.
This a small, quiet film, one that pays homage to the strength and courage of Holocaust survivors who came to Israel to forget their past and build lives based on new beginnings.
It is also a film about the power of love to ease pain and create life, and the ongoing psychological trauma survivors faced even when they were safe in their own homeland.
"The Matchmaker" is currently running at Toronto’s Sheppard Grand and Montreal’s Cavendish Mall Cinemas.
Reprinted with permission from Shalom Life
