Is this the most disturbing film ever made about… | Little White Lies

Is this the most dis­turb­ing film ever made about Ortho­dox Judaism?

10 Jun 2016

Words by Matthew Eng

Scholarly man in a library, pensive expression, surrounded by rows of books on shelves.
Scholarly man in a library, pensive expression, surrounded by rows of books on shelves.
Israeli dra­ma Tikkun rais­es vital ques­tions about the rela­tion­ship between faith and family.

Near the end of Avishai Sivan’s Tikkun, there’s a shock­ing instance of dis­turb­ing bod­i­ly vio­la­tion, cap­tured in an inescapably explic­it close-up that seems to last for ages with­in this provoca­tive dra­ma. It’s a moment that’s sure to unset­tle and even alien­ate view­ers, but it’s also eeri­ly indica­tive of the occa­sion­al­ly patience-test­ing, some­times stom­ach-turn­ing, yet unde­ni­ably pro­found lengths the Israeli writer/​director relent­less­ly dri­ves his film towards.

Tak­ing its title from the Hebrew word sig­ni­fy­ing fix­ing” or rec­ti­fi­ca­tion”, Tikkun tells the sto­ry of Haim-Aaron (first-time actor Aharon Trai­tel), a twen­tysome­thing Hasidic stu­dent who dies in a freak show­er acci­dent. Mirac­u­lous­ly, he comes back to life after 40 min­utes, much to the relief of his fam­i­ly, head­ed by his butch­er father (Khal­i­fa Natour) who ini­tial­ly believes that God has answered their prayers. But their reas­sur­ance is short-lived as Haim-Aaron under­goes an all-con­sum­ing cri­sis of faith that push­es him deep­er into the mor­tal world and fur­ther away from his family’s ultra-ortho­dox exis­tence, mak­ing him an unruly pari­ah in their devout community.

Sivan presents a unique­ly risky depic­tion of reli­gious doubt in ways both stark­ly unsub­tle, like the gri­mac­ing demeanors of the no-non­sense yeshi­va rab­bis who quick­ly become Haim-Aaron’s most unfor­giv­ing oppo­nents, and dream­i­ly fig­u­ra­tive, like the omnipresent bugs and oth­er ani­mals that appear through­out the film with­out any man­i­fest mean­ing. Shai Gold­man sharp black-and-white cin­e­matog­ra­phy is all the more remark­able for the fact that it doesn’t imme­di­ate­ly call atten­tion to itself. It sim­ply feels right for this sto­ry, as does the sta­t­ic pull of Goldman’s cam­era and the slith­ery edits by Sivan and Nili Feller, which chal­lenge us to assess the truth and sig­nif­i­cance of every sin­gle thing Haim-Aaron encoun­ters. As he ques­tions, so too must we.

Tikkun is enjoy­able in a way that few films real­ly are these days: its high-con­trast images are strik­ing and often pleas­ing on the eye, but its sto­ry, char­ac­terised by Haim-Aaron’s tiny acts of rebel­lion more than any overt­ly dra­mat­ic instances of defi­ance, refus­es to cater to audi­ences expect­ing clar­i­ty. Like Haim-Aaron’s stren­u­ous jour­ney and the equal­ly anguish­ing one it even­tu­al­ly spurs in his father, Tikkun nev­er offers up any easy answers. It con­stant­ly requires us to wade through its fas­ci­nat­ing­ly cryp­tic com­po­nents and come to our own con­clu­sions. If Sivan’s means of encour­ag­ing such par­tic­i­pa­tion are gen­uine­ly upset­ting, scarce­ly sen­ti­men­tal, and ulti­mate­ly and unflinch­ing­ly dev­as­tat­ing, so be it. The sheer dar­ing of his film­mak­ing is always more of a bless­ing than a curse.

Tikkun plays at Film Soci­ety of Lin­coln Cen­ter from 10 June.

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