Late Marriage

For the staunchly traditional Israeli family at the center of this excellent realist drama, matrimony is a curious process. It's brokered like a business deal, devoid of emotion, but ancient traditions and superstitions (including but not limited to the foreskin of an eight-day-old boy) stubbornly govern the transaction. Zaza (Ashkenazi) is a prime catch: handsome, quick-witted, a doctoral student in philosophy. But his advancing age -- he's 31 -- is an embarrassment to father Yasha (Moshonov) and mother Lili (Lili Kosashvili, the director's mother), who drag him to gloomy meet-and-greets with proper young bachelorettes who are treated like chattel. Worse, Zaza's been fooling around on the sly with Judith (Elkabetz), a dark-haired, brittle beauty who is a single mother (to Kugman) and three years older. Their secret encounters reflect a tenderness and spontaneity (without explanation, she calls him “Dooby”) that is starkly contrasted with the grim death march of the elders' marriages. The opening scene is a terrifying depiction of marital agony on a par with the drawn-out argument sequence in Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt, except the squabblers are stout, elderly Georgian immigrants -- Zaza's yenta mother and her hirsuite, foul-tempered husband. He acts out his aggression by shouting and chain-smoking, she by pouring bathwater on his cigarette. Writer-director Kosashvili plays these moments as satire, and they could be described as comedy, but the film is not optimistic about its characters' ability (or perhaps their willingness) to escape the strictures of convention. In other words, it's not a knee-slapper. But it is a remarkably intimate film, providing a richly textured portrait of the subculture of Georgian Jews and the two lovers at odds with it. The story pivots on an extended love scene that is like nothing in Hollywood -- it's frank and carnal, but it feels emotionally real. There's no spray-on prop sweat or elaborate choreography, just a hide-a-bed, straightforward two-shot photography, and a pair of actors who are fully invested in their roles. And as curious as the matchmaking rituals may seem, the way the parents struggle with their grown child for control of his destiny is recognizable, universal. Kosashvili doesn't stack the deck in Zaza's favor. As rigid as they are, they believe they are doing what's best for their son; as modern and independent as Zaza is, he's awfully willing to let them take the reins. These nuances in the characterizations and the overall execution add up to a film of beautiful, ultimately heartbreaking honesty.