Sunday Matinee
Footnote
Show Times:
Sunday 5/20 at 4:00pm!
In Hebrew, English subtitles
Drama
Running Time: 103 minutes
You wouldn’t think the clash between father and son Talmudic scholars would be fodder for a gripping comedy slash drama, but you wouldn’t think an Iranian couple trying to get divorced would be either. A Separation proved us wrong, and so does Footnote. Most of us are familiar with envy, vanity, and ego, and these are what this picture is really about. The father, a brilliant philologist, has never been recognized for his work, while his son, who produces what the father regards as loosey-goosey popularizations, has become famous. The bitter rivalry between the two comes to a head when the father is awarded the Israel Prize that both men covet. When it turns out to be a mistake, his son has to make a Sophie’s choice between his father’s career and his own. Nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards, and nominated for this year’s Palm d’Or at Cannes. Winner of the Best Screenplay award at Cannes.–PB
“A wonderful new film…a piercing satire, a poignant family drama and an investigation of the competing claims of honesty, loyalty, ambition and love… The director handles heavy themes with a light touch. He uses jaunty music , printed chapter titles, and witty forays into memory and fantasy to emphasize the absurdity of this odd little tale, allowing the precision of his writing and the discipline of the actors to reveal its essential gravity.”—A.O. Scott, The New York Times
“Both actors are tremendous: Bar Aba has the air of a near-boiling teakettle or an unexploded bomb, while Ashkenazi’s Uriel looks on with a mixture of bafflement, exhaustion and reluctant affection.”—Andrew O’Hehir, Salon
“It’s one of the smartest and most merciless comedies to come along in a while.”—Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
“The film pulls off an impressive balancing act: It’s bitter though not cruel, satirical without veering toward obviousness, deeply moving but never maudlin.”—Jon Frosch, The Atlantic
“Something between a comedy of everyday absurdity and a family tragedy pushed into the realm of the hyper-real, Footnote uses its characters’ differing relationships to authenticity as the basis for an enigmatic riff on representation.”—Karina Longworth, Village Voice
“Footnote…function[s] as a character study, an exceptionally rich one.”—Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal
“Footnote requires little knowledge of Judaism and its texts. Rather, it’s about the complications of love, guilt, and rage. In an acidly satiric style, it is devoted to the feuds among academic factions. The seething mood of contemporary Israel envelops everything.”—David Denby, New Yorker