Reviewing Movies

The movie is based on the book of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer which I have yet to read. The author adopts the conceit that this is an autobiographical tale in which he returns to the Odessa Region of the Ukraine to seek for information about his roots. Everything about this tale is eccentric. The stilted language derives from the author's own Yiddish Roots and the ideas about English supplied by his Russian Interpreter Alex--a tall awkward lad Jonathan's age. His driver, Alex' Grandfather, is blind employing a "seeing-eye" bitch, a small dog with attitude that ends up sharing the back seat with Jonathan and later his bed. Jonathan is a 'collector' who saves baggies of dirt, even that supplied him for his gramma's grave, her false teeth, photographs, a broach containing a grasshopper in amber, all of it pinned to the wall of his bedroom. The old two-cycle Russian Car they drive with a tour guide sign up top totters along always on the verge of failure but it somehow manages to negotiate superhighways, dirt roads, and paths with the grass growing between the ruts. At one point a young goatherd sticks a small pebble in the valve-stem of the back tire flattening it. There is disbelief all round when their guest announces he is vegetarian--what, no sausage? This movie did not do well at the box office, not ever the fact that it stars Lord of the Ring's Frodo, Elijah Wood, could save it.

This is one in any number of tales related by second and third generation American Jews seeking out their roots in communities purged of their ancestors by the Nazi Holocaust. What most find is either antagonism or guilt for the past amongst those that remain. If you like this movie may I recommend Shem, an independent film with a similar theme that got a cool reception in Art House Circles.