This movie feels completely alive with the combined strength of its acting, its extremely creative cinematography, soundtrack, and general composition, its commitment to historical accuracy, and its fearlessness to approach a setting and subject matter which is extremely difficult to treat with justice. I believe it is a great work of world cinema.
I came into this movie completely blind, and I think it's probably best experienced that way... so I'm not going to say anything too revealing about the characters, plot, or the themes of the movie.
As someone who was raised Jewish, culturally, religiously, but who is not dogmatic and really quite skeptical, after much introspection, of many matters related to Jewish identity and faith, I felt that this film got to the heart of matters core to "being Jewish" with more clarity, honesty, and self-awareness, than I have perhaps ever encountered before. It was clearly written and researched with a lot of care and a lot of knowledge about Jewish history and the culture of the shtetls in particular.
BUT I would not recommend this movie only to those who are Jewish and I only hope this movie reaches anyone with an open mind and an open heart to what SHTTL has to offer. It is a complex and challenging movie to interpret as it unfolds, though there is not a wasted moment and it is shot in a way that feels like things are always happening in front of you. It is an intense and profoundly human experience.
To have the whole movie in Yiddish and seemingly re-create authentically a whole shtetl village, after their disappearance from the Earth (or at least Eastern Europe...). It's a very impressive feat in the current era.
Grateful to everyone involved in this project and it seems a miracle that it was made at all given the tragedy of the current war in Ukraine. Hope that all Ukrainian-residing cast and crew, as well as their families, are managing to find relative safety.
