"World Cinema: Israel"

My book, "World Cinema: Israel" (originally published in 1996) is available from Amazon on "Kindle", with an in-depth chapter comparing and analyzing internationally acclaimed Israeli films up to 2010.

Want to see some of the best films of recent years? Just scroll down to "best films" to find listings of my recommendations.

amykronish@gmail.com

Monday, July 22, 2024

A New Film about Breast Feeding opens at the Jerusalem Film Festival

The Milky Way, directed by Maya Kenig, is a quirky parable about young mothers and how they relate to being chained down by breast feeding.


 Tala is a single woman, an offbeat singer who has just given birth to a baby girl. She lives with her mother, who is trying to help out.  Tala finds work at a factory where dozens of young mothers are pumping breast milk for sale.  This place is a big business, with pumping stations, a bottling plant with an enormous conveyor belt carrying the bottles filled with breast milk, and even a fleet of delivery trucks.

Through a series of charming incidents, Tala meets Nili who is a client and whose baby is thriving on Tala’s breast milk.  Tala learns a lot from Nili’s lonely lifestyle, and it helps her to appreciate and understand her own relationships – with her mother, with her baby daughter, and even with the father of her baby. 

Although a bit strange, this film, which is about motherhood, about connecting to your baby, and about the difficulties of being a single mom, includes great acting, a super script, and tremendous charm.  The film is filled with humor but also angst and pathos.

Filmmaker Maya Kenig is known for her previous films, the quirky Off-white Lies, starring her husband Gur Bentwich, and the charming Bentwich Syndrome, co-directed with her husband, both of which have been reviewed previously on this blog.

 

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