I caught up with My Father, My Lord last night. Unfortunately the DVD appears to have some mastering problems as there are persistent white blocks along the widescreen border at the top left of the frame throughout the entire film which are a little distracting.
The film itself I thought was very good, though many of the reviews I have read have praised it as being a
scathing indictment of ultra orthodox religious sects. I don't just want to single out Philip French on this as I've seen it described as such elsewhere, but I have a different take on the film. Spoilers will follow.
The film actually seems very ambiguous in making any comment on whether the ultra strict rabbi father has been complicit in 'destroying' his son or not. A lot of the film is quite touchingly shown from the point of view of the young boy of the family, and it is his perspective on the world around him that leads him to ask difficult questions of his Torah teachings. For example seeing a dog following its owner into an ambulance, seemingly wanting to stay by the side of its ill owner leads him to question his father on whether animals have souls like humans too, to which he gets an authoritative answer of "no", something which resonates with the comments the Rabbi makes to his students (again watched by his son) about how only God only controls the destiny of those who follow him, therefore just as animals are not considered to be 'watched over by God' therefore non-Jews, since they do not follow the teachings of the Torah, are not either.
This does make the father seem extreme, and if the film was entirely from the point of view of the young boy we could maybe see this as an example of how someone is taught the values of their, in this case very orthodox, community. However the film is a bit more complicated than that. There are very few moments that are outside of the boy's point of view in the first two thirds of the film but the few that there are involve the mother as the focus. This raises the idea that perhaps it is not about the boy at all, but maybe about the mother's role in the family. However it does not seem to be this either.
The description of the film on the back of the DVD case includes this quote "His son Menahem is of an age where he absorbs the world around him as a place of wonder. He does not resist but follows listlessly as his father leads him along the straight and narrow path that must be pursued by men of faith". Now, I have to take issue with this quote as I do not think that in any sense Menahem "follows listlessly" - he is one of the most engaging, and engaged, characters in the film, constantly asking questions, distracted watching nesting birds outside his schoolroom window, having a slight showdown with his father when told to tear up an 'idolatrous' picture, and constantly shown in a quiet awe of his father's position, both in society and as head of the household, learning lessons from him but still at the stage where he might question why a bird must be driven away from its nest, rather than just dutifully performing the action as a religious duty. The father himself is strict and bound to his own strict rules of behaviour but also loving, as is the mother.
Now we get to the central issue I have with reviews like the one I quoted above. I do not think that the film condemns the father's strict religious faith at all - at the most it suggests a certain slight ambivalence. The final sections of the film deal with the family trip to the Dead Sea, where the mother has to go to her own female only beach and the father and his son to their male only one. During a prayer session the boy breaks away to catch some fish and ends up drowning in the sea while his father is distracted.
While I think many have interpreted this as the father's unwavering religious devotion causing him to miss the plight of his own son, I think that the film is actually more condemnatory of the son - after all the boy has been questioning his father's teachings, ignoring his lessons (a rather too on the nose recital of the story of Abraham and Isaac) to watch the bird on the windowsill, and instead of going to pray with his father willfully ran off to collect the fish. I'm not suggesting that the filmmakers are saying that the child deserved his fate (there is enough screen time given over to his point of view earlier on in the film to suggest a certain amount of sympathy) but they are illustrating the result of someone straying off of the path and not adhering to their teachings, and most importantly not listening to their father, which only leads to trouble.
With the son gone, the focus then turns to the mother who, if we are still considering this to be a film simply condemning an ultra orthodox world, we might think would be our next important character. She does cry that this was the first time she had ever let her son out of her sight but importantly does not condemn the segregation of the beaches into the two sexes that led to that situation. And her final act, once the father has tried and failed to lead a sermon at the synagogue and is sitting at the table at the back of the room, is to drop the prayer books from the woman's gallery down onto him. This could be seen as a lashing out at her neglectful husband for causing the death of their son, but I think instead that it is more her condemnation of him being unable to properly perform the religious duties expected of him both to her and to the memory of their son.
So despite the time spent with him the film is not specifically in sympathy with the boy. Neither is it about the mother, who is able to express her grief freely. Instead it is more about the orthodox father. We see him preparing for the final sermon at the beginning of the film, tearfully grieving in private (unlike the mother, who can cry out in public), and the bulk of the film is told in flashback. There is no condemnation of religion, with the focus of the film on the rocking back and forth as the pupils and their teacher lose themselves in performing their prayers. The father is shown as all powerful from the boy's point of view and although their son is beginning to chafe at his parent's bonds, he still looks up to them - until the first time he actively disobeys and is then brutally punished with death. The film makes it very clear that the father is not in the wrong for not noticing his son has run off - the son is wrong for running off. And it suggests that the strict orthodox teachings are not a restrictive bond but a secure way of life, and even after a tragedy provides the framework for life to continue.
While I have my personal issues with this story, it is quite a powerfully persuasive film in putting forward its point of view with a surprising subtlety of handling (perhaps too subtle for the critics!), slightly ambiguous to suggest a condemnation of the father even though it really does seem very obvious that this is not really the filmmaker's intentions. Anyone going into it looking for a film condemning the activities of a repressive ultra orthodox religious sect is probably going to be annoyed and frustrated. Instead approach the film as an insight into a very religious society and how such a proscribed world provides the framework that gives everyone a role to play in day to day life, even during times of severe crisis.
The one area I would agree with the Philip French capsule review though is on the acting - all three main characters are sensitively played to perfection. Also the music throughout is nicely understated.
Here's the Artificial Eye trailer, which amusingly makes it look a lot more like an abusive husband/father drama than it really is!
Well, anyway, here's hoping that AE can improve on Volume One at least be consistent with running times and dates on the outer packaging and the disc cases this time.