re: #110 Mr Pancakes

In a nutshell… it’s about a sweet little (Hasid?) boy deciding that his family needs to take him to the Dead Sea for vacation…

They swim and then there is a call to prayer? Dad leaves son alone because he’s having trouble putting on his shoe… son has collected a fresh water fish (a little one) and it spills out of the bag headed for certain death in the salty Dead Sea… son goes after it.

After prayer no one can find the kid… mom was on another beach because females weren’t allowed on that beach with the males. The search team arrives and allows mom to enter the beach… and they find his body.

Dad says to mom… I was praying, how could you ask me to stop? Mom says he would have never been out of my sight.

Mom cries on the Sabbath… dad says you can’t do that.

The ending has mom totally rejecting dad’s (who was a Rabbi) ideas and pushes holy books on his head from the second story as he preys.

Israeli films have such a reputation of portraying the religious (both Hasidim and national religious) as such venomous and evil characters (while at the same time portraying the Palestinians as dainty and helpless victims), that some Orthodox Jews have started their own production companies. Ushpizin is a good example of a film that was created to counter the bad stereotypes pushed by other films. Can’t think of any others as I try to avoid these types of movies. Maybe SFZ can recommend some good ones.