"Ushpizin", the movie

shabbatiscoming

Fri, Mar 15 2013, 9:41 am

amother wrote:

I found it odd that a frum couple acts together on a movie film.

why????? what is strange about it? That they are frum? or that they are a couple in real life? I thought that that made the movie even better.

dee's mommy

Fri, Mar 15 2013, 11:02 am

[quote="curlgirl"]

Barbara wrote:

I

The whole time I was watching, I couldn't stop wondering why neither of the couple got. a. job. Did I miss the explanation for that somewhere? Scratching Head

Actually, there is a scene in the film that establishes that she has a home business. She sells tichels. He is in kollel.

In the course of the film, we are not told every detail of their lives. For all we know, maybe she does have another job. Maybe he himself has some sort of part time job that we are not being told about.

Mama Bear

Fri, Mar 15 2013, 11:07 am

You didnt watch the 'making of' after? They are a BT couple. he ws a major secular film star in EY. His director badly wantd to make another film with him. Shuli thought it would make a big kiddush hashem to star in a film that secular israelis would watch, portraying the beauty of yiddishkeit. He only wanted to act with his wife, so that he wouldnt act opposite a woman unrelated to him. She has 0 acting training. And she was amazing.

The whole film was a massive kiddush hashem. We need more films like these.

mummy-bh

Sat, Mar 16 2013, 4:36 pm

Mama Bear wrote:

The Rands send their daughters to the same school that my girls go to. Last year the wife performed at the annual mothers evening (Remember, Shosh?). I thought she was excellent.

Isramom8

Sat, Mar 16 2013, 8:22 pm

curlgirl wrote:

Barbara wrote:

I saw it years ago, and found it troubling that a man whose family was so lacking in basic necessities (money for food) would spend all that money on an etrog. But I'm sure that my opinion is not prevalent here.

Yes! I really couldn't get past that. I don't want to know if there are people out there who think that's the right thing to do.

The whole time I was watching, I couldn't stop wondering why neither of the couple got. a. job. Did I miss the explanation for that somewhere? Scratching Head

Did you also miss the part about "why" he was so intent on purchasing an etrog mehudar? Dont know

It was for fertility. Is 1000 shekel (nowadays about $270) too much to spend to try to have a child? Or do they not deserve one because they aren't high wage earners?

Peanut2

Sun, Mar 17 2013, 12:40 am

Barbara wrote:

It's kind of a modern folk tale or chassidic story IMO. They often have men doing things like that. The real ones really drive me crazy. This one actually made more sense.

It's very clear from the beginning that this a man who isn't always making the best decisions.
He's an ex-con and even now that he's religious he doesn't come to kollel as often as he's supposed to. As someone pointed out, why doesn't he just get a job then? This is about someone who is working on himself and struggling and isn't measuring up. It's what I find so compelling in the story.

IMO when he gives the money to buy the etrog he is making a mistake. It's not what he was supposed to do. It's a bad financial decision, a bad decision for shalom bayit, and religiously not the first place it should go probably. But it's what he did and now his avoda and his wife's avoda is to deal with that, and with the other things that come up... He has changed externally and the etrog is also an external thing. Now he needs to work on the internal part of his change.

curlgirl

Sun, Mar 17 2013, 1:59 am

Isramom8 wrote:

curlgirl wrote:

Barbara wrote:

Did you also miss the part about "why" he was so intent on purchasing an etrog mehudar? Dont know

It was for fertility. Is 1000 shekel (nowadays about $270) too much to spend to try to have a child? Or do they not deserve one because they aren't high wage earners?

Interesting, this is very different from my belief system.

I would think Hashem would want him to spend the money on FOOD lechavod yom tov, and daven for a child. Hashem doesn't need us to pay him in money for an answer to our tfillot Scratching Head