The Ravenna Kibbutz

Anyone who read Jew-ish.com’s fairly recent piece on the Israeli cinema boom knows that Jerusalem is the new Hollywood. Okay, not really, though it’s be cool to follow the “Bollywood” model of punning and call it “Holywood.” Anyway, I’ve been programming an Israeli film series at the Ravenna Kibbutz since September; it’ll soon become a Jewish film series, so I can show a greater variety of movies.

This is partly because at least one resident-organizer has voiced the opinion—shared, I suspect, by quite a few other Jews, Jewish cinephiles, and non-Jewish cinephiles—that Israeli films tend not to be all that great, and that even when they are, they’re downers. True, movies like Broken Wings, Or (My Treasure), Beaufort, Late Marriage, a 2008 film in which Orthodox parents lose their child (I can’t remember the name), and Waltz with Bashir (currently in theaters) are hardly uppers, but there has to be some theme in Israeli pictures that isn’t death, prostitution, war, or crushing patriarchal domination.

Enter Noodle, which I screened a few days ago and which manages to deal with serious subjects, including how illegal aliens are treated in Israel (hint: pretty much the way they’re treated here, with a few provisos), without abandoning a delicate tone of light humor mixed with affecting pathos. The main character, Miri, has lost not one but two husbands in wars (I think one would have been enough, but it’s not a huge quibble), and she badly needs to love someone who’s relatively easy to love. “Noodle,” her Chinese cleaning lady’s young son, is precisely such a person, and it’s a credit to the filmmakers that a premise that might have become sappy and irritating in the hands of, say, Chris Columbus ends up taking us on a pretty nuanced emotional journey.

A friend teared up several times during the movie, then wondered afterwards whether it’s “manipulative.” I told her that Noodle only manipulates the emotions as much as any well-made family drama does, and the film hits enough truthful notes—especially in its first-rate depiction of the tumultuous relationship between Miri and her sister—to earn its tear-jerker moments. If you’ve decided that renting an Israeli movie means watching people get blown up (Beaufort) or lose all self-respect (Or, Late Marriage), take Noodle for a spin sometime. And make sure you order Chinese food beforehand, because by the time this one’s over, you’re going to want it badly.