A young Hasidic Jewish woman is pressured into an arranged levirate marriage to an older widower.
In the end, it’s hard to determine whether Burshtein is celebrating or critiquing the insularity and strict traditions of the community that she herself joined in her 20s – but presumably that’s part of the point.
The main strength of Burshtein’s film lies in its rarity: few movies have ever been made about life behind the scenes of an Orthodox religious society. The main weakness is that, in its anxiety not to be judgmental, Fill The Void lacks a point of view.
Like Saudi Arabia's Wadjda, Burshtein's film is a groundbreaking first - the first Israeli film to be directed by a woman - and although it lacks a little of the emotional heft of Haifaa al-Mansour's work, it's a well acted and delicately told tale.
An uncomfortable but impressively detailed rendering of a cultural niche.
Fill the Void works because it’s a well-written, delicately directed drama with themes recognisable to any audience.
The story unfolds intriguingly within an intimate, almost claustrophobic environment. There is perhaps something ultimately undeveloped about it, but the film is a well acted, well presented piece of work.
Its last five minutes are so extraordinarily enigmatic, you’re certain the subject of innocence, guilt and attraction has been addressed on a deep level.
Like Jane Austen in Tel Aviv, Rama Burshtein’s debut is a warm, watchful slant on marital mores in an ultraorthodox Jewish community.
Yochay. Though the film seems thoroughly embedded in this world, the resulting claustrophobia makes it a little inscrutable and, as a result, harder to engage with Shira’s predicament.
It's a fine and complex finale to a deceptively enriching film.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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