Home, directed by Benny Fredman, screenplay written by Benny Fredman and Dror Keren, is a film about greed and hypocrisy within the Jerusalem haredi community. The story is about a newly-wed couple, Yair and Nava, who are trying to find their way by building a mutually understanding relationship and a warm and loving home. The story is based on a real event that happened to the filmmaker, when he was a young man, living with his new wife in Geula, which is an over-crowded, haredi neighborhood in the center of Jerusalem.
The film begins with Yair studying at a kolel (yeshiva)
for married men, but he is dreaming of opening a computer store. When he opens his first store, he is met with
a few surprises. One of them is Nava’s
disappointment at the fact that her husband is no longer a torah scholar. Another is the neighborhood committee which
is demanding protection money under the guise of inspecting that he isn’t
selling anything that will undermine the morals of the community’s young
people. Yair agrees immediately to
selling only computers and MP-3 players (remember those?) which are not connected
to the internet or to radio. As his
business grows, the amount of protection money doubles. Then the terms change, and the committee
wants a bigger pound of flesh, but Yair isn’t so willing to play the game.
In his remarks following the screening of his film, the
filmmaker said: “I tried to show both sides, the side of the hero and the side
of the head of the neighborhood committee who wants to protect the children of
the neighborhood. I tried to show the
complexity of a man who finds himself fighting against his community, his
family, everything he knows.”
Home (110 minutes, 2023) is a gripping
thriller, with wonderful pacing. The viewer is drawn in and really cares about
the characters who are seen with depth and lots of personality. But most importantly, it is a
based-on-real-life look at navigating one’s life within a tight-knit haredi
community. The film is available from Go2Films.
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