Margaret Mead ’14: The Return

There are those who use the term “right of return” as a holy mantra, but if it were ever granted to the Jewish diaspora in every country that ever dispossessed their Jewish citizenry, nearly all of Europe and the Middle East would face serious legal implications. However, at least one nation would readily welcome them back. That would be Poland, which has embraced its Jewish history in recent years, even though its Jewish population remains small. Nevertheless, there are a significant number of Poles who belatedly learned of their families’ secret Jewish heritage in the post-Communist era. In very different ways, four such women will chose to embrace their Jewish roots in Adam Zucker’s The Return (trailer here), which screens during the American Museum of Natural History’s 2014 Margaret Mead Film Festival.

During the National Socialist occupation, anyone whose family was the smallest part Jewish had every reason to keep it secret. The circumstances were somewhat less dire under Communism, but it is important to remember the atheistic Party periodically launched its own anti-Semitic campaigns. However, in a modern Poland shaped by Walesa and Wajda, attitudes are dramatically different. In one scene, we see a long abandoned provincial synagogue with the words “Jews, we miss you” scrawled across it, in a weird but affecting graffiti tribute.

Tusia and her boyfriend are scouting that building, hoping they can repurpose it into some sort nonprofit that will serve both the local town and pay tribute to those who once worshipped there. However, their future is uncertain, because they both feel the lure of Bushwick, Brooklyn (there’s no accounting for taste). In fact, all four women profiled share a common dilemma. Do they stay in Poland to rebuild the Jewish community or do they go abroad for the sake of their families and careers? Both Kasia, a leftwing activist, and Maria (who alone among Zucker’s subjects was born and bred Orthodox) find the grass is greener in Israel, either for academic research or raising children. Similarly, Katka, a Slovakian Orthodox convert, will debate where she should pursue her studies.

One of the great ironies of Return is the sort of ambiguous state Kasia and those whose mothers were not Jewish find themselves in. While not technically considered Jewish, they would have been more than Jewish enough to be persecuted under the previous regimes. It is a thorny question that the Kasia and Katka resolve in their own ways.

Together with films like 100 Voices: a Journey Home, Return presents a more complete portrait of the tolerant, modern day Poland that deeply mourns its Jewry lost to National Socialism and further repressed by Soviet Socialism. It even has some celebrity cachet, thanks to Matisyahu, whose performance at the Krakow JCC clearly held a great deal of personal significance for the performer. However, the film’s POV figures are maybe not as consistently riveting as one might hope. Nonetheless, it is a laudably optimistic film that offers a lot of helpful context and food for thought. Respectfully recommended, The Return screens this Saturday (10/25), as part of this year’s Margaret Mead Film Festival.

Margaret Mead ’14: Vultures of Tibet (short)

If ever there was a documentary short that cried out for the IMAX treatment, this would be it. The expansive vistas are truly breathtaking, but this is not merely travelogue. It is a scathing critique of cultural insensitivity and exploitation, shot guerilla style without the sanction of the Chinese authorities. That is usually a promising indicator and Russell O. Bush’s Vultures of Tibet (trailer here) is no exception. Indeed, it is a particularly fitting selection of the American Museum of Natural History’s 2014 Margaret Mead Film Festival, which screens the twenty-one minute documentary this weekend.

The Tibetan “Sky Burial” represents a supreme act of Buddhist charity, in which the body is offered to the great Griffon Vultures, closing the great cycle of life. However, photos and videos of the vultures devouring bodies of the devout have become a crass internet sensation, inspiring a cottage industry of wildly inappropriate tours.

Although Westerners also come to gawk, it is the Chinese sightseers who seem to be particularly invasive. Clearly, there are multiple meanings to the titular vultures, who become a metaphor for a metaphor. Obviously, the Chinese tourists are vulture-like intruders, but they are really manifestations of a wider, more insidious cultural and political exploitation.

For greater perspective, Bush interviews several Tibetans, maintaining the integrity of their commentary, but re-recording their responses with the voices of Tibetan exiles to preserve their anonymity. Like the best Iranian films, much of the credits are simply ascribed to “anonymous,” which says quite a bit about the human rights situation for average Tibetans.

Vultures is a particularly effective film, because it is not overtly political, per se, but the implications are inescapable. It is also quite impressive on a technical level, with considerable credit due to cinematographer Drew Xanthopoulos for the incredible shots he captured. It is a challenging work that ought to strike a nerve with festival patrons. Highly recommended, Vultures of Tibet screens this Saturday (10/25) with Tender (an Australian funerary-themed feature doc), as part of this year’s Margaret Mead Film Festival.

Margaret Mead ’14: The Darkside

It is sort of like ethnographic research for the campfire. Indigenous filmmaker Warwick Thornton invited Australians to submit stories about their interactions with the spirit world as part of a larger oral history project with an aboriginal focus. However, the results were not always as spooky as he expected. Family and loss are the primary themes of the thirteen tales re-told by screen-actors in The Darkside (trailer here), Thornton’s documentary by monologue, which screens during the American Museum of Natural History’s 2014 Margaret Mead Film Festival.

Like nearly every anthology film, Darkside is a bit uneven, but Thornton, serving as his own cinematographer, always gives his static shots a warm eerie glow befitting the subject matter. By far the scariest story (and the one most riveting to watch) chronicles the tragedy wrought on the narrator’s family by a cast-off Ouija board. Occasionally, Thornton breaks format, as when he pans and scans the darkened corridors of the National Film and Sound Archive. Another more traditionally creepy tale of the supernatural, it should particularly interest AMNH patrons, since it involves poet Romaine Moreton’s brush with the malevolent spirit of Sir Colin Mackenzie, the notorious director of the discredited Australian Institute of Anatomy, whose building was repurposed to serve as the film archive.

For fans of 1980s movies, it is quite amusing to see Bryan Brown turn up as one of the storytellers, but his yarn does not have the archetypal weight of the better installments. Easily, the most emotionally resonant tale is logically the final chapter, whereas the penultimate segment features the liveliest delivery. Oddly, the weakest anecdote, a mere sketch about a traditional aboriginal grandfather’s response to a lunar eclipse apparently inspired the one-sheet, but at least most of the constituent ghost stories hold some sort of deeper cultural significance.

Executed with tremendous sensitivity, Darkside is a quiet film that takes its time finding its footing, with some of the earlier stories feeling like warm-ups for the heavier stuff to follow. It is a bit unusual to have a Margaret Mead selection that is so appropriate for Halloween programming, but its concern for indigenous people and oral history nicely fits the festival’s mission. More elegiac than scary overall, The Darkside is recommended for viewers interested in indigenous Australian culture and the ghost story-telling tradition when it screens this coming Sunday (10/26) at the American Museum of Natural History as part of this year’s Margaret Mead Film Festival.

Margaret Mead ’14: Kismet

Many of them sound more like telenovelas than soap operas, but whatever you call them, Turkish television serial melodramas are doing boffo business internationally. Bulgaria and Greece are important markets, but the popularity of Turkish television has exploded in the Middle East. Greek filmmaker Nina Maria Paschalidou documents the progressive influence of Turkey’s primetime soaps in Kismet (trailer here), which screens during the American Museum of Natural History’s 2014 Margaret Mead Film Festival.

Only in the Middle East could a series about a sultan and his harem be considered liberal and progressive. That would definitely be the awkward case study in Kismet. A far better example is Fatmagul, an extraordinary bold drama following a woman’s quest to bring her three rapists to justice. In the Islamist world, that is explosive stuff. Other shows frankly address issues such as arranged marriages to child brides, spousal abuse, and genital mutilation, inspiring women to speak out and even seek divorces. Not surprisingly, one misogynistic bureaucrat in the Emirates’ Department of Religious Affairs launches into quite a tirade against Turkish television (it goes without saying, but if your government has some sort of Department of Religion, you probably live in a theocratic fever-swamp).

Paschalidou profiles the fans who watch the programming, the cast-members they adore, and the creative staff (often led by women) who put them together and keep them going. While the strongest sequences focus on the Middle Eastern market, she also interviews fans in Bulgaria and Greece (where there is also growing resentment of Turkish programming, not for ideologically reasons, but simply due to its Turkishness).

Frankly, Kismet’s execution will not blow anyone away, but the premise is fascinating. Paschalidou vividly illustrates her points with film clips shrewdly selected for their taboo-breaking content and their inherent theatricality. You are unlikely to see any of these shows picked up by American broadcasters anytime soon, for a variety of reasons. Still, a program like Fatmagul really ought to be available to some extent, just for the way it uncompromisingly reflects the violence and exploitation of women endured by women in the Middle East (and the greater Islamic world).

Having received production support from Al Jazeera and clocking in at about an hour, Kismet definitely has the feel of a television special report, albeit one of reasonable depth and substance. However, you are unlikely to see the hidebound news media tackle this subject, so intrigued viewers should see it now. Recommended for patrons concerned about global women’s rights, Kismet screens this Friday (10/24) at the AMNH, as part of this year’s Margaret Mead Film Festival.

Margaret Mead ’14: Jalanan

It is like an Indonesian Once, except these real life buskers have a far more difficult time scraping out a subsistence living on the streets of Jakarta. They have considerable talent, but Indonesia is a tough room to play. Music, culture, and local regulations all collide in Daniel Ziv’s documentary, Jalanan (trailer here), which screens during the American Museum of Natural History’s 2014 Margaret Mead Film Festival.

Jalanan means “streetside”—and that is exactly where Ziv’s three primary buskers play. It is also more or less where Boni Putera and his family live. For ten years, they have squatted beneath an underpass, jury-rigging a rather impressive system of plumbing. As street living goes, it is relatively comfortable, but there are drawbacks, especially when the canal floods.

Even though she does not wear a headscarf, Titi Juwariyah often incorporates her Islamic faith into her lyrics. Of course, they usually garner respectable tips from more devout commuters. Frankly, through her experiences, viewers get a very personal sense of what it is like being a Muslim woman in the Southeast Asian country, especially with respects to parental rights (which will be denied to her) and educational opportunities (which were cut short for her at an early age).

As the most political of the buskers, it is not surprising Bambang “Ho” Mulyono serves some jail time, but he is picked rather randomly as part of the cops’ general campaign against fun and reason. He is not the only one temporarily imprisoned on dubious pretenses, but at least he eventually wriggles loose. In fact, he might have the most optimistic arc of the trio.

There is a lot of messy life happening in Jalanan, including significant good things and unresolved bad things, but the greatest surprise of the film is probably the quality of their music. Yes, they are street buskers, but they should in no way be confused with the “smile, it won’t mess up your hair” dude who sometimes warbles on the 6 train. Frankly, they are considerably better than your average hipster coffeehouse singer-songwriters. Their tunes are distinctive and their lyrics often have heavy meaning.

Whenever a documentary closely observes the trials and tribulations of those living in extreme poverty, the appearance of exploitation is always an issue. However, Ziv has apparently put some of his money where his lens was, starting and donating to a permanent housing fund for his subjects. He certainly pulls viewers into their lives, emphasizing the specificities of Indonesian life. In fact, the general hopefulness of Jalanan distinguishes it from many well-meaning but downbeat (and often condescending) documentary guilt trips focused on the developing world. Combining cultural insights with some catchy music, Jalanan is recommended socially conscious and busker-conscious audiences when it screens this Friday (10/24) at the AMNH, as part of this year’s Margaret Mead Film Festival.