Womanly Tales

In a year there will be at least one movie that goes right over my head – and this year, it’s ‘A Serious Man’. Highly recommended by critics and friends, Deepan and I went to see this movie yesterday.
It’s post such experiences that I really am thankful for true entertainers across Hollywood and Bollywood [and all the other tinsel towns in India]. As a movie goer, I go in hoping I’ll enjoy the story, and come out having engaged in some way with the experience. As most movie goers, I also have my favorite genres – so that I don’t have to go a horror film, for example. In most cases, movies are an enjoyable and engaging experience with a few exceptions.
The last time I blogged about one of these exceptions, I ended up deleting the blog post since it was attracting a whole lot of comments that I really didn’t care for. So Deepan and I had a good laugh this morning when I said I was going to blog about ‘A Serious Man’.
This is definitely another exception for me.
The movie is a Jewish one and I came out feeling devoid of all hope that the Israeli – Palestinian conflict will ever be resolved… and it isn’t because of the lack of intent or effort from a Palestinian standpoint.
I can’t say I am very familiar with Judaism so the movie was a learning experience – though given the thick layering of Jewish cultural stuff, I would think 70% of the ‘real meanings’ just went over my head. So what did register?
- Jews refer to non-Jews with a particular word – - reminded me of the term ‘Kafir’ used by muslims in similar contexts, ie, to refer to non-believers. So culturally there is a very strong us versus them bred into the identity of a Jew.
- Kids that go through the barmitsva become somehow part of the Israeli state even if you’re ‘American’.
This was a bit wierd to learn about – Somehow ‘a promised land’ doesn’t quite translate into the ‘state of Israel’ in my mind. If my kids choose to convert to Judaism, I’d be alarmed about them being in way shape or form connected to Israel. I think this comes from being brought up in a secular tradition – where nationality is not necessarily linked with religion. When ministers swear in to office they can choose to take oath in the name of ‘GOD’ or the Indian constitution. Here ‘GOD’ is not a reference to any particular God but generic across all religions and to the candidate himself personal to his God.
Ramachander Guha in a talk this year about South Asian democracies qualified that much of Europe are states defined by one religion – Christianity. So it is hard for non-christians to migrate to Europe and find their place in society. It isn’t about the language, or the dress code [regardless of what the French will tell you related to the burka/burkini scandal] but about a natural unspoken affinity to the supremacy of one religion – - Christianity.
Deepan has me watching a series on BBC called ‘The history of Christianity’ – It’s an eye-opening experience with historical examples of intolerance and prejudice between different sects of Christianity and between Christianity and other religions [primarily Islam]. In the UK, with the Anglican church and the head of state, a Queen ordained by God [The Christian one], it can become very quickly a hostile environment for Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs or Parsis.
And yet, post 9-11, Western ‘democracies’ have done a bang up job of pretending to be ‘secular’ and demonizing Islam – - subverting the fact that the Iraq invasion is yet another holy war, with Christianity looking to yet again assert a culture of religious ‘supremacy’ — The idea that one God is greater than another is such a ridiculous one and yet there are countless years of historical precedent to prove that Western Europe has been at this for a long time.
Unlike Hinduism, Judaism has been in the middle of all these historical precedents – perhaps a reason why the Jewish culture as depicted in ‘A Serious Man’ appears as claustrophobic — feeding off itself in an orgy of complete oblivance to the world outside. How else would have Judaism survived if not for the relentless use of cultural blinkers — keeping everything out but its own.
15 minutes into the movie and I was deemed an outsider. There seems to be a deliberate intention in the script and the direction to keep me out. The story was a Jewish one, the language and experiences steeped in Jewish culture and there is no need to explain or open any doors to non-believers. In this way, this is a honest movie. The futility of the ‘knowing’ against the ‘ordinary – not so knowing’ is painfully enacted. Religion is depicted as a large stone wall that Jews tend to just beat themselves up against, relentlessly and without fail. It’s like a cursed cycle: All roads lead to the religion, only to find religion as the biggest roadblock in human progress.
Yet, there is no empathy sought or given. There is no solutions sought or given. It’s a perpetual cycle that seems to go on for a few more generations at least. The victims will be the outsiders because we are not just mere spectators, but subject to the repurcussions of this maddening pursuit of nothingness.
Or so the movie went. What I liked was the music – in particular an old Jewish song that was really beautiful.
The movie started with a short story – one that implied to me at least that in the ‘old’ days it was very clear who was ‘one of us’ and who wasn’t. Those who weren’t are part of the army of the devil and to me that meant some form of ghost — for humans were good, abiding Jews.
Next we’re in the world of a professor of Physics and everything seems to be falling apart. He is really in the center of endless persecutions, from his students, his neighbours, his brother, his wife and children – and he’s having a hard time deal with it all since he seems to be the ‘good, abiding’ Jew. In dealing with these issues, he looks to guidance from the local Rabbi [Jewish priest] with little success.
The movie ends with the warning of an impending calamity.
In many ways this movie could be like a painting. The story, the characters, the music, the building blocks of film are immaterial. What remains with the viewer is something else… different threads that are human and not particular to the Jewish culture — This movie inspires emotions that are as strong as what you’d witness when looking at a painting.
Mine were: Futility, a deep sense of gloom and a voracious need to break the glass, crack the guitar and LIVE again.