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Kadosh (1999)
Runtime: 1 hr 57 mins
Synopsis: With KADOSH (meaning Sacred) director Amos Gitai paints a powerful picture of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem's isolated Mea Shearim district. KADOSH follows two sisters through two events initiated by the community's Rabbi: an arranged marriage and an arranged... With KADOSH (meaning Sacred) director Amos Gitai paints a powerful picture of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem's isolated Mea Shearim district. KADOSH follows two sisters through two events initiated by the community's Rabbi: an arranged marriage and an arranged divorce. Although Malka (Meital Barda) is in love with Yaakov (Sami Hori), who broke his connection to Orthodox Judaism when he joined the army, she consents to marrying the man to whom the Rabbi has willed her, and she quickly finds herself trapped in a miserable, abusive relationship. Meanwhile, Malka's sister Rivka (Yael Abecassis), is forced to end her 10-year marriage to Meir (Yoram Hattab), because she has not fulfilled her obligation to bear him a child. The film presents difficult issues both about the way that women are devalued and mistreated in this community, and about the extent to which the rigors of this traditional faith prohibit any experience of the outside world. At the same time, Gitai's fly-on-the-wall approach allows the viewer to carefully observe the rituals, beliefs, and relationships in this ultra-Orthodox world, and understand more about a culture that was essentially lost to the Holocaust, but that is preserved in Mea Shearim. [More]
Genre: Foreign Films
Starring: Meital Barda, Yael Abecassis, Yussuf Abu-Warda, Yoram Hattab, Sami Hori
Screenwriter: Amos Gitai, Eliette Abecassis
Producer: Michael Propper
Composer: Philippe Eidel
Reviews
An unforgettably emotional film, as the love between the lead characters becomes shot through with tension, guilt and jealousy.
An incredibly sensitive Israeli film about the harsh effects of religious zealotry.
Gitai handles his potentially melodramatic material with unfailing taste and compassion, encouraging his audience to think long and hard about the moral dilemmas his film intelligently explores.
The emphasis of the film is on how the ultra-Orthodox Jews of that sect live by the letter of the Torah in everything they do.


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