Between the Temples

Between the Temples
Between the Temples

The cantorial drama’s central character can’t find himself in the hush of prayer. This is precisely what Nathan Silver’s film The Shofar’s Blow Sound is like, “Between the Temples“. Have you ever listened to one? It sounds like an individual, who is sitting in the driver’s seat and resting their head on the steering wheel and sounds exactly like that one strong and heavy noise. It suits the beginning of the most jarring humorous film this year, in which the main character is a man who lost his wife and his strength to hope, and even to raise his voice.

The film is funny and has a lot of hilarious moments. Jason Schwartzman plays the role of Ben Gottlieb, a Jewish man who has been depressed ever since he lost his author wife to a tragic accident a few months back. It is not easy for him, especially because he has been living with two poor mothers, Caroline Aaron and Dolly De Leon, who are both very caring but don’t have an idea how to deal with the situation. (‘In Judaism, we don’t have heaven or hell.’ Ben smiled slightly and added. ‘We only have the upstate New York.’) Ben is forced to leave the scenario all dressed up to perform his first Shabbat in front of an audience, and walks home after ignoring his surroundings. While walking home, he starts listening to affectionate voice messages sent by his wife, only to get irritated. Feeling defeated, Ben collapses laying on the road in the hopes of ending his life. An 18-wheeler nears him and almost crushes him. ‘Keep going’, Ben pleaded.

“Don’t stop, please!” This is a deep and funny line, but it is also not a line that can be classified as one that introduces the stage in fact, it’s hard to imagine any other comedy that starts in the thick of things quite like this but it captures the raw energy and climactic whirl of agony and ecstasy that makes up the film’s comedic center as conceived by Silver and his co-writer C. Mason Wells.

Of course, the driver is unable to fulfill Ben’s demand but he does take him to a cheap bar where he gulps many mudslides, gets knocked out, and from this sad situation, he meets his ex-wife, Carla Kessler (Carol Kane), a self-made widow searching for the next purpose of her life. While his mothers are very open about their desperation to marry him off to a nice Jewish girl, perhaps Gabby (Madeleine Weinstein), a rabbi’s daughter (Robert Smigel), Ben, however, ends up spending more time with Carla. In order to reconnect with her heritage, Carla decides that it is time to finally have the bat mitzvah deprived to her by her Russian Communist parents which she gave up on when she married her late protestant husband. Further, Ben is supposed to officiate it for her. He should not be surprised, Carla is a bit older than his typical students and thus it is understandable why she would want to attend the synagogue, however, it only takes Ben so much arm twisting before he allows her to.

After all, they are kindred spirits, in obvious and less obvious ways, both being widowed but drawn to each other for more than their loss for there are quite a number of reasons. For starters, Ben considers “Mrs. O’Connor” to be a “bundle of warmth” and quite an inspiring teacher, although the cantor falls in love even more with her frankness which she expresses when she tells him: “I don’t remember you”. He also admires her talkative personality and the sense of freedom she possesses in her selective obedience to religious practices. On her part, Carla appreciates the fact that Ben is considerate of his religion and pays attention to her when she is talking to him. Susceptible to life’s bumps and bruises, both see that the other has the potential to make them have the sweetest of laughs even whilst experiencing the harshest of outcomes. Their unexpected ease with one another highlights why their friendship is so strong. The two, rather against all odds, help each other out, attending Hebrew classes, chomping down on pork, and drinking mushroom-infused tea.

This is Silver’s ninth feature and, like his previous ones, it bathes in the duty of portraying the chaotic alchemy of oddball interacting beings being in the same space what makes it different has just as much to do with the strange and spontaneous energies filling the space between the characters as what it is they are saying. It is well illustrated here that ‘Between the Temples’ is a comedy with predominantly comedies. The topic is not a critique of organized religion, but a compassionate analysis of how people constantly re-interpret their engagement to this or that religion, and consequently how they engage with one another, in accordance with the ever-changing currents of need, wishes, and situations.

Thus, Schwartzman and Kane are clearly a remarkable pair whose chemistry, rugged and soft in turns, captures the relationship between Ben and Carla, for both spouses a peculiar dysfunction, neither a discovery nor a delusion, somewhere in between, that neither is able to put into words, or cares to. Schwartzman, whose charming sob culture has inspired him to become a widower once again in the last year’s “Asteroid City”, depicts Ben as a character without energy, without losing focus, aimless, and morose due to intense bereavement. That is, until Kane enters the image, with innate comic quirks and that easily recognizable voice, audaciously like that of a cold rude rising sun, obliterating his clouds; with her wonder, joy, and irreverent wit, Kane is the heart of the film.

However, these two performances are supported by a well-chosen cast that also includes a bemused Smigel, best known for his more comedic exploits as the puppeteer and voice of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, who puts golf balls into the shofar and plays the role of the rabbi who is more worried about making money than practicing religion, and relative newcomer Madeline Weinstein as Smigel’s now single daughter Gabby. Although she comes into the story only after one hour of screen time, Weinstein does not just play her character but rather contributes to the second tier of the film and thereby two significant moments in the film.

Upon returning from a botched engagement, Gabby seems even more of a mess than Ben and therein lies the explanation for the humorous subplot with Ben and Gabby in a Jewish graveyard during one of the most sexy depictions in the film, which can only be described as darkly funny. In its stead, however, it was a calamitous Shabbat dinner during which a dense web of confessions, grievances, revelations, and humiliations seemed to come apart at the seams which was the most traumatizing moment in the film ‘Between the Temples’. This sequence makes the viewer understand why Ben’s basement door exists, with every slamming sound reminiscent of a scheming soul.

The cinematography in “Between the Temples” was done on 16mm by Sean Price Williams, who I believe will become one of the great names in the New York independent film community due to his expressive style. The style showcases all the powerful and creative elements needed to project the essence of disorder. The vibrancy of the film’s screwball drama is enhanced by his captivating attention to faces, as demonstrated through his handheld camera. He wanders the world of people, faces, and voices, accompanied by an active, thrilling barrage of dialogue that penetrates through the characters’ defenses and brings forth the most intense emotional struggles. The events flow thanks to John Magary’s unorthodox editing, which combines abrupt and staccato cuts that make the feature feel quite lively. This may doubly increase the level of attention of the audience.

At once, the premise of the film brings to mind the ‘May-December’ romance of Harold and Maud, which can be almost expected seeing Schwartzman a frequent Anderson collaborator whose tragicomic wit, love of eccentrics, underdogs, and Cat Stevens are descendants of Hal Ashby and are bound to draw parallels. But Silver does not go out to develop anything tragic and rather feels more improvisational in a warm sense and naturally buoyant enough to avert any of their characters’ actual earnestness in exploration and self-detection and the stubbornness and humanity of that act. Somewhere beneath the surface, there is a sweetness that shines through “Between the Temples”. The film of course revolves around the miraculous quality which the so Arabic all the roundabout paths one eventually takes while looking for their lives ‘aimlessly’ towards those who may actually help them.

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