The Women’s Balcony
Directed by Emil Ben-Shimon
Starring Avraham Aviv Alush, Yafit Asulin, Orna Banai
Unrated
In Hebrew with subtitles
Playing at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas
An Orthodox Jewish congregation in Jerusalem is thrown into upheaval after its women’s section collapses in “The Women’s Balcony,” an engaging movie that expands its highly specific setting into a universal moral inquiry.
The film by Emil Ben-Shimon, a smash hit in its home country, chronicles the dispute that arises when the group splits over how to repair the damage: the men follow the lead of a charismatic rabbi (Aviv Alush), who has very stringent ideas about the sort of synagogue to rebuild, and the women wage an increasingly aggressive protest campaign against his efforts.
With a strong sense of place and an eye for authentic details in terms of rituals and naturalistic interactions, the filmmaker captures the fundamental conflict between secular and religious considerations that wage a sort of symbolic tug-of-war over these characters, in different ways. His movie is subtle and restrained but it’s unafraid to question the patriarchal structure that dominates this world and so many others.
