Kadosh (1999)

I love this movie so much

Good concept, poorly executed.

Excellent but underrated film

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

This film is a glimpse into the fictional life of two sisters in Mea Sharim, Jerusalem. In this area of Jerusalem the locals tend to be very strict in their religious practice and live there to avoid the secular Israel. Kadosh shows the sisters struggle with the expectations of their particular sect of Judaism,their families and their own desires for happiness.Being a film there is only so much time in which weave the threads of the story with complex religious issues and local customs. Judiasm is not monolithic so there is not much point in picking apart how this or that is portrayed. Judaism is a wonderful Technicolor quilt across the various streams. Kadosh is not an indictment of Judaism. It is but a story of two sisters.The pace is necessarily slow to let you drink in the complex situations. You need to give this film a chance. It is a good effort to portray the human condition.

I somehow failed for a few years to see this film, although it has been quite successful and generated a lot of discussions in Israel. I am sorry that I did not postpone indefinitely seeing it.The theme of 'Kadosh' is a very real and painful one for those who know the Jewish religious world - the place of women in the orthodox family and society. The basic situation that sits at the premises of the film is possible, the problem is that the way it is brought to screen and the 'solution' that the conflicts described receives in the movie is wrong. Gitai does not seem to have too much sympathy for men in the religious world, but his approach of picking characters that are either fanatic, or unable to express their human feeling makes the whole story seem simplistic. Neither does he a much better service to his women characters, although here at least he shows more sympathy and he also enjoys the participation of two beautiful and gifted actresses in Yael Abecassis and Meital Barda. Overall Gitai's vision is too one-sided, his cinema means are too basic, he focuses on the technical details of the Jewish religious life, which may be interesting for people who do not know them but are really not relevant at all in the context of the whole story. Starting from interesting premises what we get here is a boring film which seems longer than it is, with a very static way of acting, obsessive use of music that plays in the same register not only from a musical but also from an emotional perspective and a very inconclusive if not even confusing ending. What difference between this film and 'Ha Ushpizin' inspired from and describing the very same social landscape and which succeeded to transmit human feelings on the screen. In 'Kadosh' there are both too little cinema and too little human emotions.

My mother told me not to go to see "Kadosh" -- but who ever listens to one's mother? I was so turned off by it while I was watching I thought I must have lost my feminist credentials on the way into the theater, so I checked with card-carrying feminists the next day. No, they also thought it was much more an anti-Orthodox screed than a pro-feminist statement, painting the Orthodox as equal to the Taliban.While this Israeli movie is careful to show that the sect the story is about is the ultimate ultra-Orthodox Messianists, it is so nasty as to be unbelievable (plus that the non-fanatic Orthodox rock-'n'-roller(!) one of the sisters is in love with is incredibly sexy--even in Israel that must be fantasy).The theater was quite crowded, so there's a pent-up curiosity to see Israeli movies; too bad this vicious movie is the one getting wide distribution. This was almost enough to drive me back to insipid Hollywood romantic movies. (originally written 4/29/2000)

It is apparent that director, writers and everyone else knows nothing about their own religion or the people who practice it. This movie is endlessly flawed and overall a complete crock.For instance, there is a scene where the rabbi enters the woman's ritual bath while a naked woman is bathing, puts his hand on the head of a woman there and blesses her. This is complete mockery of the laws, in this scene alone some of the laws broken include: Modesty, a rabbi would never enter a ritual bath house while there are woman in it.Improper contact, a rabbi would never put his hand on a woman's head, not to mention that it is not the way a blessing is given.The woman from the ritual bath is dunking a naked woman by pushing her head under the water, the laws regarding ritual bathing require the entire body to make direct contact with the bath water; this means nobody should be in contact with the person bathing, certainly not pushing them under!There was more just in that scene alone, like dunking 13 times (where does that concept even come from?) not to mention the rest of the movie was a total fallacy. It is scary what ignorance can concoct!