A FUN
COMING OF
AGE
FILM
THE MATCHMAKER
By John Delia
A sincere coming of age film with a lot of a unusual romance comes to the screen, it’s called The Matchmaker and features fine acting and direction. The movie gives a heartwarming look into lives that were aching from the past atrocities of war that muddled their futures. If you like films that delve into a slice of life that’s continuously a hardship, it’s time you met The Matchmaker.
The film centers on Arik (Tuval Shafir), a teen coming of age in 1968 Haifa, Israel. Born into a family of Holocaust survivors he’s been sheltered from that awful era, as his friends have, in order to seek happiness. One day while playing a street soccer game he bumps into Yankele Bride (Adir Miller), a mysterious man with a hideous facial scar. Yankele asks Arik if he knows any women who are not beautiful and have difficulty finding a marriage partner.
Arik sends Yankele to his parent’s house as a prank to show off in front of his friends only to find out that his father and Yankele grew up together. When Yankele sees the cunning in Arik’s trick he asks him to work as a detective for his odd kind of matchmaking business. So starts an unusual story of romance, lessons in growing up, conflicts, jealousy, misunderstanding and oh yes, Love.
Director Avi Nesher, who also wrote the film, moves his film along introducing his charming characters and setting up his audience for an out of the ordinary story about matchmaking of a different kind. Within the premise however, he weaves his tale of a young boy yearning to delve into a grown up world so he surrounds himself with impossible dreams that he gets from the detective novels he reads. Nesher works his thread by adding obstacles and relationships to the mix including a young girl from the United States to entice the wide-eyed central character creating some lightheartedness from the on going intrigue.
I liked the film very much, but it is not without a downside for me. I consider myself a fairly quick reader, but due to the fast delivery of the Hebrew language, the subtitles fly by at a speed that caused me to loose a lot of the dialogue. Notwithstanding, even without some of the dialogue Nesher photographs his film to be absorbed with the use of fine camerawork and human gestures. If you are not able to see it in a theater, I recommend you acquire the DVD so you can pause or slow down some of the sequences.
In the film you will see a group of Dwarfs who represent the many who were interred at German concentration camps. Later freed they started businesses in Haifa Israel. Nasher doesn’t shy away from bringing their struggle to the screen showing them running a movie theater in the ‘red-light’ district trying to build a future. One in particular, Bat-El Papura as Sylvia, brings a very touching character into the movie as a client of the matchmaker. Her performance provides one of those seldom found gems that are not easily forgotten. Â
The Matchmaker is unrated but contains language and adult situations. The film is shown in Hebrew with English subtitles.
FINAL ANALYSIS: A nice coming of age surprise. (4 stars)
Additional Film Information:
- Cast: Tuval Shafir, Adir Miller, Bat-El Papura and Maya Dagan
- Directed by: Avi Nesher
- MPAA Rating: Unrated
- Genre: Foreign, Romance, Drama
- Running Time: 1 hr 52 minutes
- Opening Date: March 23, 2012
- Distributed by: Menemsha Films
AWARDS:
- Audience Award for Best Feature Film at Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival 2011
- Panavision Audience Choice Award Best Israeli Film at Israel Film Festival NY 2011
- Silver Plaque Award at Chicago International Film Festival 2010
- Official Selection at Toronto International Film Festival 2010
- Opening Night Film at Los Angeles Israeli Film Festival 2010
- Nominated for 7 Israeli Academy Awards Including Best Picture