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Amazon (08/12/2015)
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It
is an older film, and as such, the director did a good job for the most part.
The subject is emigration and immigration. If you can overlook some of the
style of the way some characters and scenes are presented, it is worth staying
for the whole show and the boy star was superb! I did like it.
This
is a truly great movie that has been released by Facets.
Motl, an 11-year-old boy, and his immediate and extended family (his father is deceased) leave their shtetl in circa 1915 Russia (Poland is not in existence at this time). They travel by train to a city in which to get on a ship to go to America. He meets many characters along the way, all historically realistic in portrayal. The family find many problems on their way, and I will not spoil them.
What is a pretty simple and straightforward story is enhanced in several ways by director Efrim Gribov. He captures a phantasmagorical time through the eyes of a child whose world is already plagued by progroms, racial hatred, and economic strife. He has an optimistic, but innocent, view of the world. The camera stock changes from grainy to clear, black-and-white to color (albeit sepia tones), and mise-en-scene to dream-like. Yes, it is shot as if it were a series of Marc Chagall works. The Sholem Aleichem-based narratives make this movie even more important to those who study Jewish cinema (like myself).
There are some important historical facts about this movie. Made in 1992, it is one of the first Russian movies that deals with Jews and the Pale. It is not strange that Soviet cinema barely focused on problems with Jews, but to come right after the fall of the USSR, this movie is as important as the masterpiece "The Kommissar," Askoldov's banned 1967 movie also featuring Yiddish Jews. Even more, the use of Chagall-based imagery and Sholem Aleichem stories shows their importance to Russians, straying from the socialist realist movies of the USSR. The audience is given a glimpse of Jewish rituals, something extremely rare in Soviet cinema.
The movie truly moves. There is a ritual bathing scene (nudity) and some violence, but they are part of the story.
Strong 5 of 5! It's dream-like, but with beautiful cinematography that look like old film footage and photographs than real.
Motl, an 11-year-old boy, and his immediate and extended family (his father is deceased) leave their shtetl in circa 1915 Russia (Poland is not in existence at this time). They travel by train to a city in which to get on a ship to go to America. He meets many characters along the way, all historically realistic in portrayal. The family find many problems on their way, and I will not spoil them.
What is a pretty simple and straightforward story is enhanced in several ways by director Efrim Gribov. He captures a phantasmagorical time through the eyes of a child whose world is already plagued by progroms, racial hatred, and economic strife. He has an optimistic, but innocent, view of the world. The camera stock changes from grainy to clear, black-and-white to color (albeit sepia tones), and mise-en-scene to dream-like. Yes, it is shot as if it were a series of Marc Chagall works. The Sholem Aleichem-based narratives make this movie even more important to those who study Jewish cinema (like myself).
There are some important historical facts about this movie. Made in 1992, it is one of the first Russian movies that deals with Jews and the Pale. It is not strange that Soviet cinema barely focused on problems with Jews, but to come right after the fall of the USSR, this movie is as important as the masterpiece "The Kommissar," Askoldov's banned 1967 movie also featuring Yiddish Jews. Even more, the use of Chagall-based imagery and Sholem Aleichem stories shows their importance to Russians, straying from the socialist realist movies of the USSR. The audience is given a glimpse of Jewish rituals, something extremely rare in Soviet cinema.
The movie truly moves. There is a ritual bathing scene (nudity) and some violence, but they are part of the story.
Strong 5 of 5! It's dream-like, but with beautiful cinematography that look like old film footage and photographs than real.
2
of 2 people found the following review helpful
Director
Yefim Gribov draws on sources such as the short stories of Sholom Aleichem and
paintings by Marc Chagall to weave together this beautiful tale. We are Going
to America chronicles the journey of a Jewish family from Russia to the U.S.
The protagonist, 11 year old Motl, makes the oft-seen immigrant's experience
film unique. Viewed through Motl's lens the world is dreamlike, fantastic, and
magical. The family comes in contact with a host of strange and wonderful
people, such as ghosts and a "witch" who wears a huge bird's nest in
her hair. The dreamy other-worldly quality of the film highlights the fact that
immigrants who are forced to leave their homeland in search of a better future
are subjected to an uncertain limbo-like existence and must make their way
through strange and unfamiliar lands. The film is a tapestry of the hopes and
dreams of the future weaved with the painful memories of the past.
Горжусь тем, что писал сценарий к этому фильму.
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