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She tells her father "Often when I came into this
kitchen, I found her weeping.", and begins to question the direction of
her own life. Instead of agreeing to marry her fiancé Michael
(Guri Alfi), one of her father's rabbinical students, a man she does
not love and who treats her in a condescending manner, she asks instead
to postpone the marriage and go away to study at the Daat Emet seminary
for women in Safed, an old city noted for its devotion to practices of
mystical Judaism. The seminary is an avenue for Jewish women who want
to study Talmud and Torah before they plunge into marriage. It is led
by a woman who hopes that someday there will be a female rabbi, but
offers only patience and faith while quietly awaiting a “silent
revolution”.
One of Naomi's roommates, Michelle (Michal Shtamler),
is an irritable young woman recently arrived in Israel from Paris.
Naomi and Michelle are assigned to deliver food daily to Anouk (Fanny
Ardant), a cancer patient, also from France. They learn that Anouk has
recently been released from prison after serving fifteen years for
murder, an event Anouk describes as a crime of passion. Although the
reasons are not explained, she has come to Israel to seek healing and
redemption for her crime even though she is not Jewish. She wants God
to forgive her before she dies and wants Naomi and Michelle to help her
achieve atonement.
Anouk asks for a Tikkun, an
ancient Kabbalistic cleansing ritual based on the symbol of Tikkun
ha-Olam which embodies the command that humanity must restore and
redeem a broken and fallen world. In some of the film's strongest
sequences, the girls and Anouk visit a holy cleansing pool in the
middle of the night because it is off limits for women. Feminist and
Lesbian issues are touched in Naomi and Michelle's growing relationship
that expands into sexual exploration. An additional subplot involves
the high-spirited Yanki (Adir Miller), a klezmer clarinetist who has
his eyes on the marriage possibilities with one of the girls. While The
Secrets goes on too long and may be over-plotted, it is wonderfully
acted by Bukstein, Ardant, and Shtamler and makes clear that the fight
against dogma and religious intolerance is one that is as real today as
ever. GRADE: B
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