After their wedding, when Shira and Yochay enter a room, presumably to consummate their marriage, she seems to be thinking, "Oh no, I didn't sign up for this." I'll admit, at first this struck me as funny, but then I thought that even after consenting to marry her former brother-in-law, Shira was still the unwilling victim of tradition. Does anyone have similar thoughts? Am I off base on this?
shareYes and no. I took it as a proverbial fill in the blank. That last shot of her fiddling with her dress, scratching her dress, not knowing what to do next was, I imagine, universal, in her community. I took the ending to mean their marriage was born out of unusual & tragic circumstances, and it was a beautiful image that they are going to navigate through life together & compromise.
It was a bit akward- they are family, yet they are sexual strangers, but the romantic in me saw Shira's happy ending.
In a way this reminded me of the ending of "The Graduate," with that "where do we go from here?" look. Shira never questioned her role in the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) world. Her only reservation about the marriage seemed to be that she would not be his first sex partner.
shareYour point about her community and the circumstances makes sense. Thank you for shedding light on this.
shareThat last shot of her fiddling with her dress, scratching her dress, not knowing what to do next was, I imagine, universal, in her community. I took the ending to mean their marriage was born out of unusual & tragic circumstances, and it was a beautiful image that they are going to navigate through life together & compromise.Agree with this completely. She decided after much agonising to marry him and he seemed to have much sympathy towards her. Her behaviour in that final scene is typical of what is universal in many cultures still and would have been prevalent in all cultures at one time. Nice catch about the tension between having been 'family' and now newly weds.
It was a bit akward- they are family, yet they are sexual strangers, but the romantic in me saw Shira's happy ending.
The distance is nothing. The first step is the hardest.share
>>> Sha was still the unwilling victim of tradition.
She was not the unwilling victim of tradition at the end of the movie; nor was she at any time in the movie.
Number 1, she was very happy to follow that tradition, early on the movie, when she thought it would lead to the husband she wanted. Although she didn't know the guy, she only caught a glance of him. As far as I can tell, she was confusing thinking that a guy is sexy, with being in love. But I regress, the point is, she was greeting tradition with open-arms.
Number 2, she didn't do anything unwillingly. Her family may have put a little pressure on her, but the choice was entirely left to her. And she is the one who made the choice.
Number 3, this particular "choice" didn't have so much to do with the marriage tradition (which she really didn't seem to have any issue with) of her people, as it had to do with the question of was she going to marry this particular man, JUST TO MAKE HER MOTHER HAPPY.
As for the last scene when she seems uneasy, I gotta think a lot of people who marry people they have no particular feelings for, and also have never had sex with, may be feeling uneasy at that moment.
As for the last scene when she seems uneasy, I gotta think a lot of people who marry people they have no particular feelings for, and also have never had sex with, may be feeling uneasy at that moment.
You say......
What got to me was the uncontrolled sobbing *before* the marriage. It was so vague as to whether the crying was grief for her dead sister as well as uncertainty and fear. The most painful thing of all about this film, and the situation it presents: Shira *did* seem to love Yochy, but the circumstances of their "meeting" and "falling in love" were tortured.
I got the feeling that the director wanted to show her thought process in her accepting what has taken place. We will never be sure if she is secure in this being what her sister would have wanted, despite tradition. Very rarely is it shown a woman doing this to another woman, but to her own sister is even more rare, so we have little to go on from her thought process. These films always show a dead male husband or fiancee not a woman. She may feel this was not mines to begin with so how am I honoring my sister while mourning her and marrying her guy. It is a lot to think about and I am not sure they will ever be truly comfortable with it. They both are second choices that have been thrust into being each others number one of not there choosing.
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I agree that everyone was very considerate of her feelings. Her situation deserved much consideration and it was vey complicated with the death of hers sister and transitioning from loving this man from a brother in law to a lover. It also had to deal with their ages and other issues such as the baby. She was young and taking on a lot. Still I felt the ending was very profound. It was mixed with the "now what" stage that probably happens with someone you marry and uncertainty. In the end, It's possible they slept together or not. I can see Yoycha being very considerate that way. I think he did love her and respected her. You can always tell he liked her answers by his reaction. He was also older and marrying someone younger so that also played into the situation throughout the movie. It was a good film for me.
shareI took it that he was clearly drunk during the wedding and she realized that she had married a man with a serious drinking problem. Now she was going to have to get into bed with a drunk stranger. Ick.
She gave in and "did the right thing" and prior to the wedding, everyone was so pleased with her... but during the Bedeken (the veiling of the bride- explained here http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/313719/jewish/The-Veilin g-Ceremony-Bedeken.htm, it was 100% clear to me that he was BLOTTO.
Recall that at the beginning of the film, he called Esther out of the room while he was drunk to tell her that he loved her. Possibly he could only express feelings and seek intimacy when drunk. Ick again.
And he and Shira don't have a great love to carry them past the inevitable bumps in the road of life.
Ugh. She is screwed.
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I really disagree. I don't think he's drunk, which I've never seen at a Jewish wedding before and which would be inappropriate.
A previous poster wrote, "I took her fear at the end to be that of a virgin facing deflowering; it made her all the more endearing." I think that's really what's going on.
I didn't think he was drunk either, and as for the earlier scene with Esther, it was Purim, wasn't it, which I understand is one of two times during the year when drinking a bit too much is tolerated.
shareNo, I really didn't get that impression from this scene, not at all. I think the other comments on this thread have got much closer to the mark, all of them, about grief, nerves, anxiety, etc etc. Even where comments have a different view, that's fine, as I think the ending is ambiguous, which is fine and many possible answers for her reaction are there to be found. I particularly liked the points about the support she had from her family, and the consideration that her new husband was family before, now to be a lover. Also the discussions about what her pre marriage tears means is very thought provoking. But what I never got was any sense of fears about a drinking problem.
This film is contained within a community, with social norms that I know little/nothing about, and I suspect the same is true for most comments here. We have to be careful to interpret those reactions through that filter, not come at it solely with our own cultural baggage.
Yes, it was all about submission, she even said it herself that she is marrying him because that is the right thing to do given the circumstances. She even told the Rabbi this.
Q: why was Yochay crying in one scene when Shira comes in to talk to him? I mean I get it he is grieving etc. .. but that particular scene had a meaning precisely .. what was he crying for?
But the scriptwriter in this movie kept having the character of "Yochay" ask more than a few times what she was really feeling. I think he knew she was feeling something for him outside of "duty" to the family etc., but either she didn't have the imagination and/or bravery to say it, or she wasn't feeling anything at all (which I would think would be impossible) A sexual charge? A curiosity about the possibilities of love? A re-looking at a situation that she had never thought she'd be in?
Well, maybe it was because Yochay was so good looking, it is hard to imagine that she didn't feel something.
I don't think Yochay was a drunk. His wife had said that he always said he loved her once a year at Purim and it was implied that this was done after drinking. Was he drinking a whole bunch of other times but didn't tell her he loved her?
Yeah, he was drinking during his hysterical crying bout but remember, his wife was dead and there was a possibility that he was moving to Belgium. He felt the pressures from the family just as much as Shira.
Anyway, I think the two of them felt something for the other. In these kinds of arranged marriages, this was a better start than some.
There was something highly charged and very erotic about all the restraint and formality between them. If I felt it as a viewer, what must it feel like in a room?Absolutely! It was palpable to me as a viewer too.
Movement ends, intent continues;share
Intent ends, spirit continues
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I have no doubt that Yochay had fallen in love with Shira, but i also believe that Shira had no feelings of that kind for him .. she seemed to be drowning in guilt and did the only thing that she could, to make everyone else happy .. i felt extremely sorry for her at the end, and thought that if she could just make it all go away, that she would have .. Yochay marrying Frieda made so much more sense to me .. Frieda would have been ecstatic, and Yochay would have been getting someone closer to his own age .. i'm wondering how this film might have played out, if Shira was not quite so young and gorgeous..
~every saint has a past .. every sinner has a future~
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