The Believer

Umm sorry but wtf. Shavua tov! Second Seder discussion somehow descended from the classic my dad thinks he can eat Kitniyot because Genghis Khan into a full “why is chicken meat” discussion, which is how this film ended up being recommended by my mother.  Ngl I kinda loved it. It’s really weird, but also weirdly familiar (the Jewish stuff, not the Nazi stuff obviously). But honestly, I don’t think it’s really about Judaism or Nazism or even antisemitism in any primary sense. It feels much more like a film about individual self-hatred. What it does say about antisemitism is interesting and still very relevant, but it doesn’t feel like the main point. It’s more like the mechanism through which the deeper psychological story is told. (It’s less about hatred of the other and more about what happens when that hatred is absorbed into the self.) And I think that’s why it works so well. It feels less like a historical or political story and more like something psychological, almost uncomfortably personal. What it’s does say about antisemitism does weirdly hold up now. Like it doesn’t feel distant or confined to its context at all. If anything it feels a bit too relevant. Ryan Gosling is so brilliant and I will never be seeing him the same way  Loved the details in this. Ne’ila is my favourite service of the year so yeh. And the shofar detail at the end… so clever.