“Abe”, 2019 movie review from Sundance
“Abe” isn’t a movie for everyone. It definitely is for me. It’s a movie about a teenage boy that lives in Brooklyn whose mother is an Israeli Jewish and father is a Palestinian Muslim. This is something I could expect from Israeli film makers which often appear on international film festivals with movies about the conflict. But Brazilian film in English? Why? It was enough to get my attention.
You see, I live in Brooklyn near the same Prospect Park subway station that is shown in this movie, and I am half Ukrainian and half Jewish. Considering that Jews were killed by Ukrainians through different historical episodes, such a mix in my blood can make some things slightly complicated. And it’s not only me, for example, actress Rashida Jones had several periods through her life, when she explored her Jewish and African-American heritage, and identified accordingly. The leading actor Noah Schnapp has Russian Jewish father and Moroccan Jewish mother, which is kind of interesting background itself because of a small rivalry between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews within the Israeli community. He was born in New York in a Canadian immigrants family. Story author and film director Fernando Grostein Andrade is a Ukrainian Jewish descent on one side and a Catholic on another, he also has some family in Brooklyn and fell in love with the diversity of this place. Having Jewish roots and sympathizing with Palestinian struggle, Grostein Andrade finds a very good balance in the film, movie doesn’t pick a side, neither it makes us to do it.
Considering that the USA is one big melting pot, and also availability of DNA tests, people can easily explore their heritage now, sometimes discovering some surprises in their lineage. Main character’s name is Abraham or Ibrahim, depends on who calls him. But he actually prefers just to be called Abe. He was said that his mother is Jewish which makes him Jewish according to Jewish religion, and his father is Muslim which makes him Muslim according to Muslim religion. His father is also atheist New Yorker which makes him drink wine sometimes. I know a person in Israel whose mother is a Russian Muslim, and father is a Russian Jewish which makes her what? At least she is both Israeli and Russian but she’s neither Jewish or Muslim according to the religious laws.
So what is our future here? Notice that we only face one alien race on each of the planets in sci-fi movies like Star Wars. Maybe we will evolve into truly one Human race eventually? Ironically, we can’t really see it happening yet in a diverse country like the US. My Airbnb guests from Brazil told me that there is no racial tension there, everybody is just a Brazilian with different shades of skin color. And here we are, came the full circle: Brazilian director mixing things up in his movie, and providing us with some food for thought as its main character experimenting with mixing up Jewish and Arabic cuisine in a diverse Brooklyn environment.
Living in America, people often ask me where I’m from, so at first I used to answer that i’m from Israel, later I realized that it’s not really fair as I was born and grew up in Ukraine, I just was proud of my Jewish heritage, although only my father is Jewish. So who am I? Frankly, I’m 35, and I still don’t have an answer to this question.
An entire cast of the movie consists of immigrants, and the movie director Fernando Grostein Andrade was very grateful to American people for being such a welcoming nation in his short speech after the premiere. As he said “Immigrants is what makes America great”, and Sundance audience, myself included, couldn’t agree more by showering him in ovations.