Film Reviews

Live and Become

• Rating:
• Director: Radu Mihaileanu
• Starring: Moshe Agazzi
• Details: France, 149 mins, PG.

Schlomo, an eight-year-old Ethiopian boy, is forced onto a bus by his mother so he will survive the famine that has killed his father and brother. Taken to Israel by a sympathetic stranger, Schlomo poses as a Jew to gain acceptance and is adopted by a liberal Jewish family who know his secret. Schlomo, hiding his true identity, tries to grow up as a Jewish boy and fit in with the ethnic exclusivity of the Israel state. He eventually falls for, and marries, a Jewish girl but Schlomo, always aloof, lives with the guilt of leaving his mother, whom he still believes is alive, behind.
A French movie about an Ethiopian Jew doesn't come along everyday and director Mihaileanu (Train de Vie) makes it unmissable when it does. Mihaileanu delivers so many nice touches; it becomes embarrassing (Schlomo trying to stop the water escaping down the drain in the shower is a standout) and directs with a steady pace in this character driven story. Depending on one character to carry the film, Mihaileanu has scribed a complex interesting figure in Schlomo. Flawed but ultimately a sympathetic human, the director entrusted the character to three actors who play Schlomo as a boy, a teenager and a man respectively who seem to have all being reading from the same page and bring a consistency to the character.

Review by Gavin Burke