An axe has just been taken to the frozen sea of my heart.

Kafka would be so proud.

I'm a real bah-humbug when it comes to movies. I've been betrayed so often by the superficial emotion and unearned sex and violence in most films that I usually walk into movie theaters ready to be annoyed. I barricade all my emotions because I know that someone is just setting me up to cry at a joyful reunion or the return of a lost dog. I won't take it. Neither will I sit around and watch people paw at each other for pawing's sake. Or shoot at each other just for a thrill.

But yesterday I saw a film that took off the top of my head and landed a blow to my gut that I'm still feeling. It's called Kadosh (Hebrew word for sacred). The action takes place in an ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem. The central characters are a husband (Meir) and wife (Rivkah) who are devoted to each other, but childless. The rabbi demands that Meir divorce Rivkah and take on another wife that will give him children. The only purpose of woman, says the rabbi, is to bear children. And Rivkah has failed. Meir has to make a choice. Will he stay with the wife of his youth, or follow the dictates of his religious culture?

The other story is of Rivkah's sister, Malka, who wants to marry a man who left the community to lead a secular life. The rabbi, however, has chosen an orthodox man for her husband. The only way she can get out of the marriage is to leave the community, her family, and her heritage.

It's a powerful setup. And the film delivers. I watched this movie in an open carrel in the middle of the university library, and I was sobbing through parts of it. That never happens (all right, all right, except during the last scene of Brigham City, but the lights were down so no one can prove it).

Kadosh is full of sex -- I'd say at least a fifth of the film runs this vein -- though it steers clear of nudity (quite a feat). I had always wondered why filmmakers thought they needed to show people in bed. Now I know why, because the director, Amos Gitai, did it right. Each intimate scene is infused with a high-octane element: in some scenes we see martial love at its most exalted (and therefore, sometimes also at it's most painful), and in another, absolute but unstoppable monstrosity. I had never seen screened sex imbued with spiritual content before. But now I know it can be done. The back of the video case says that the film was a feminist polemic, but I saw it as a love story, probably the most beautiful one I've ever seen. Romeo and Juliet can go jump off a bridge.

Oh, and one really great thing. All Mormons are allowed to watch this film, as it has not been rated.

Watching Kadosh brought a very interesting question to my mind. The guy who recommended this movie to me said that the Orthodox community this movie portrayed (which was the community the director came from) came unglued when this film hit the theaters. I think I can see why, because, in the end, the antagonist is the culture itself. For example, one of the arguments the rabbi brings up to Meir is that the reason to have children is to strengthen the community so that someday it can "vanquish" their oppressors and the "secular government." And in Judaism, having no descendants to carry on your name is basically a living death (as far as the movie said, anyway, I don't know anything about this stuff). And all of this had verses from the Torah or the commentaries as back up. Drawing the line between the culture and the doctrine, in this case, is near impossible. Which is probably exactly why the community was so angered by the movie. Yet, in my outsider's opinion, the movie could not have reached the heights it did without entering into such charged territory. Watching this film has been one of the most spiritual experiences I've ever had.

So here's what I wonder. Was it worth it, in the eternal scheme of things, for Gitai to have alienated himself from his spiritual community in order to create such a magnificent work of art? I mean, as far as the religious community of his youth is telling him, he's probably damned now. I wonder, has he sold his birthright for a mess of pottage? In the end, is this film, with all its power, pottage?

Stephen Carter
Fairbanks, Alaska