Everything Is Illuminated (2005)
The screenplay and direction are by the well-known actor Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan), who adapts Jonathan Safran Foer’s autobiographical novel of the same name. The young American Jewish writer Jonathan, with a photograph his grandmother gave him on her deathbed, searches for the woman who saved his grandfather in a Ukrainian village during World War II. Elijah Wood, still riding the momentum from The Lord of the Rings, delivers a strong, understated performance, but the real scene-stealer is Eugene Hütz, lead singer of Gogol Bordello, who is simply delightful.
Despite its subject matter, the film is clearly a quirky comedy with a bittersweet tone, an interesting directorial approach, and—perhaps unsurprisingly—a great soundtrack. It’s genuinely puzzling why it didn’t receive more recognition or why Schreiber never directed another film (apart from two episodes of Ray Donovan), considering how well he handled this project, which was likely a passion project for him. Perhaps his acting career was on the rise at the time and later on. Will he go down in history like Charles Laughton—an actor who left his mark by directing a single, unique film? Time will tell.
One final observation: this is a film that speaks about Judaism with far greater respect, depth, and—most importantly—in a much more organic way than Brutalist. I make this comparison because I watched both films around the same time.
Red Ghost
90 minutes long, zero depth, characters with exactly one defining trait so you can tell them apart (and nothing more), and a Soviet Clint Eastwood from the Dollars Trilogy—mostly because he doesn’t speak at all. Maybe a bit of Rambo too (lone commando). They grab their rifles, exchange 4-5 random lines, and start mowing down Nazis. Конец.
A Russian production, one of the better World War II films to come out of Russia (though honestly, if you swapped the Nazis for aliens, the movie would be exactly the same). Pure action, no interest in anti-war messages—just straight-up shooting. Not as much gunfire as you might expect, since the real carnage happens in the final act, but up until then, the film never drags (at least for me).
That’s all, folks... Have a nice Sunday Night.
