Le Petite Jerusalem

"Rich and gently intoxicating... Albou opens up the physical and psychological spaces of two strong Jewish women..." -Nathan Lee, The New York Times

La Petite Jerusalem Winner of the script prize at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, Karin Albou´s La Petite Jérusalem pits intimacy against sex and ideology against divinity, "with candor, sympathy and excellent cinematography," (Nathan Lee, The New York Times). Offering an unusual glimpse into an unseen , cloistered world, the film sensitively lays bare the souls and passions of two sisters in search of sexual and spiritual identity.

In a Paris suburb nicknamed Little Jerusalem, a family of Sephardic Orthodox immigrants shares a low-income apartment. Beautiful, teenaged Laura (Fanny Valette) distances herself from her family´s religion and her own burgeoning desire by devoting every waking moment to intellectual discipline and secular philosophy. Mathilde (Elsa Zylberstein, That Day), Laura´s married older sister, worries that strict observance of the Torah´s marital codes has driven her husband Ariel (Bruno Todeschini, Code Unknown) into the bed of another. When Laura falls under the spell of Djamel, a handsome Muslim Journalist, and Mathilde discovers that her worst fears are true, the two very different sisters find themselves in very similar crises.

"I won´t be a slave to my senses," says the rigorously rational Laura. But as her sexual awakening consumes her, Laura risks rejection from her own community and harm at the hands of anti-Semitic street gangs. At the same time, Mathilde struggles to reconcile her traditional responsibilities to her husband with moral law, personal modesty, and physical desire. A film of graceful delicacy and luminous sensuality, La Petite Jérusalem subtly depicts the personal journeys taken by two modern women raised in an ancient faith.

Upplagd i sortimentet: 13 November, 2006