EDITH KURZWEIL
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Now, he returns to their empty apartment and begins to dream of the
sexual relationship he never will experience. No docudrama could evoke
the desperation of two young people whose love is shattered by the ha–
tred their society has fostered.
Freud Leaving Home
has nothing to do with Freud, but is about the
youngest daughter of a Jewish family, nicknamed Freud, in contemporary
Stockholm, whose attachment to her mother is fraught with more than
the usual contradictions. But it is about much more, after the family
finds out that their beautiful, party-loving mother, Rosha, who domi–
nates the family, is to die of cancer within a few weeks or months. The
homosexual son had come for a week's visit from Miami, and the reli–
gious daughter from Jerusalem. The lavish birthday party was postponed
rather than cancelled: Rosha refused to die in the hospital and insisted on
dying as she had lived, after the party was over. By then, we have learned
that she had wanted to marry her husband's brother (in whose arms she
collapses while dancing), and that this fact had never kept her from being
a devoted spouse and generous mother - in spite of her nagging ways.
She recommends to her now overly-religious daughter, who had left for
Israel after a wild past, to undergo the abortion she wants; reveals to her
son that she loves him despite his lifestyle; and is heartened by Freud's
lunge into a love affair with a free-spirited, unconventional Swede.
Ultimately, she helps her husband and children confront the realities they
are running from - while facing her death by encouraging them to make
decisions rather than live passively. The family trappings and habits are
typically Jewish, but the message is universal. And yet, by talking of a
general message I am leaving out a profusion of complicated themes, of
subtle interactions that qualifY this film as a subtle work of art.
Rosha had survived the Holocaust. Madi, in
Balagan (mess),
is the
daughter of a Holocaust survivor. Together with Moni, a religious Jew
of Iraqi origins, and with Khaled, a Palestinian, she performs in an inno–
vative and controversial play,
Arbeit Macht Frei. Balagan
is a collage of
this play, of interviews with the actors, and of the way they manage to
live within their own communities while forging close personal relation–
ships across what truly are nearly overwhelming political and cultural
barriers. Personally, I was jolted by the riotous Arab rallies calling for the
Jews to be pushed into the sea, and by Khaled, who at the beginning of
the film was absolutely convinced that the Holocaust was an Israeli in–
vention - until he visited Vad Yashem in order to be able to act his part.
Later on, he has a hard time getting his card-playing chums to accept
him. For he let on that on his long car rides to the theater he picks up
Israelis, even Israeli soldiers carrying guns, that he is dancing in the nude,
