This startlingly angry film from Israeli director Amos Gitai opens with an ultra-Orthodox Jewish scholar thanking God he wasn't born a woman; by the final moments, it's obvious why. Among the ultra-Orthodox of Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighborhood, the roles of men and
women are inflexibly defined. In their heavy black clothes and sidecurls, the men study the Torah at the yeshiva while women like Rivka (Yael Abecassis) and her younger sister Malka (Meital Barda) are expected to keep house and, above all else, bear children. But after 10 years of marriage to Meir
(Yoram Hattab), Rivka still isn't pregnant, and Meir's father (Yussef Abu Warda), a rabbi, urges his son ...
Released:
1999
Rated:
NR
Length:
116 mins