The Secrets - Movie Review

MPAA Rating: R for some nudity, sexuality and brief language.
Runtime: 127 mins.
Director: Avi Nesher
Writer: Hadar Galron & Avi Nesher
Cast: Fanny Ardant; Ania Bukstein; Michal Shtamler ... complete cast
Tagline: The Secrets.
Genre: Foreign/Drama
Memorable Quote: "As Orthodox women, our liberation is more difficult than that of secular women." ... more quotes
Release Date: March 13, 2009
DVD Release Date: This title not yet on DVD.
Distributor: Monterey Media

Israeli filmmaker Avie Nesher and London-born screenwriter and feminist playwrite Hadar Galron combine their own experiences and observations of life within traditional Jewish culture to create The Secrets, a hebrew-language film about the complex relationship between two young women attending seminary school in Safed, one of the holiest cities in Israel. The film is a sobering yet inspirational look at the growing conflict arising between a woman's daily life in an Orthodox community and her expectations as dictated by Jewish law. Traditionally, Orthodox Jewish women are put in a secondary position and do not attend institutions of higher Jewish learning, rather, they're kept uneducated and unlearned, as â"a learned woman is a ruined woman."

But lately there's been a quiet revolution of sorts where Midrashas, or schools for women, are being established with hopes of eventually gaining equal rights for women under the Orthodox Jewry. Many women who attend these Midrashas hope that one day women will have the opportunity to become a rabbi in the ultra Orthodox community.

As The Secrets begins, we meet Naomi (Ania Bukstein), the whip-smart daughter of a powerful ultra-orthodox rabbi, who decides to attend a Midrasha rather than agree to the pre-arranged marriage to her father's banal protÃ©gÃ©, Michael (Guri Alfi). We sense early on, Naomi's strong sense of female-assuredness that is certain to eventually clash with the impracticalities of traditional Jewish convention.

One student Naomi meets at school is the rebellious spirit Michelle (Michal Shtamler) who is a chain-smoking cynic, running from some sort of shady past in Paris. The two girls initially find little in common in fact rather despise each other - until they both begin to care for Anouk (Fanny Ardant), a beautiful but mysterious older lady with a terminal illness.

Based on Naomi's knowledge of the Kabbalah, the three women are soon breaking tradition and participating in a series of â"tikunim" or rituals, that the trio hope will cleanse Anouk of her sins before she dies. We learn that Anouk had recently spent time in prison for a crime of passion; so naturally, her inclusion in the story sprinkles the proceedings with an interesting moral conundrum. One particular scene takes place in a sacred cleansing pool and is one of the most moving moments in the film. Because these rituals stretch the borders of normal Jewish law, the women must hide their actions from the school's headmistress, which proves to be quite challenging since some involve a certain degree of self-mortification.

Through their closeness with Anouk, Naomi and Michelle's relationship unexpectedly turns romantic. But Naomi finds nothing in the scriptures that forbids lesbian love, only that male homosexuality is banned, so the two allow their relationship to blossom. The film could have taken a turn for the overly-melodramatic worse here were it not for the believability of the relationship between Bukstein and Shtamler's characters. The two women display a strong passion for each other that is unexpected yet convincing. The same emotions were what sold Brokeback Mountain to a confidingly skeptical audience.

The Secrets plays as both a convincing argument against the outdated traditional Jewish practices and as a sentimental star-crossed love story. But Nesher's skillful hand as director and the convincing performances of the lead actresses allow both halves of the film to peacefully coexist without becoming overly schmaltzy.