NETFLIX – SERIES
Inspired by an autobiographical story (Unorthodox, the Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots) by the American Deborah Feldman, this miniseries should have been one of the pieces of resistance of the Séries Mania festival, the 2020 edition of which promised to do their part in the destinies, words and imaginations of women. Story of an escape, Unorthodox embraces themes that have fueled films as different as The heart has its reasons, by Orthodox Jewish filmmaker Rama Burshtein, or the Kadosh, by Amos Gitaï. The authors (screenwriters Anna Winger and Alexa Karolinski, director Maria Schrader) take it up with modesty and simplicity, at the risk of simplification.
Esther Shapiro (Shira Haas) grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in a Hasidic community, far from her mother, who, after being banished, left New York for Berlin. Raised by her grandmother, the young girl was married to a slightly sluggish big boy, Yakov (Amit Rahav), whom everyone calls “Yanky”. In the first episode, Esty (since that’s what she is called) takes advantage of the conjunction of a power failure and the strict application of religious rules to leave her family, direction Berlin.
Around Potsdamer Platz, she meets a bunch of conservatory students. A series of flashbacks with a predictable layout reveals the fugitive’s passion for music, her isolation in the face of a beautiful hostile family, her growing frustration with married life. Meanwhile, in Williamsburg, a family council decides to send the abandoned husband to Berlin in the company of Moishe (Jeff Wilbusch), a bad subject, who could thus redeem himself in the eyes of the community.
Epic proportions
The unfolding of the intrigue will offer few surprises, between Esty’s express initiation into secular life, the efforts of her pursuers to find her, then bring her back to the fold and the reunion between the young girl and her mother. . More than by the painting of a community engulfed in the patriarchy that others have staged with more nuance and depth of field, it is by the portrait of a young woman determined to be born into the world that stands out Unorthodox. Israeli actress Shira Haas first hints at the unwavering resolve of her character before deploying all its complexity. Whether she bathes in the Wannsee, a stone’s throw from the villa where the final solution was decided, a few hours after her arrival in Berlin, whether she faces the contempt of Moishe, Etsy takes on epic proportions, which swear a little with its conventional environment. The gang of students who keep it under its wing is only a collection of stereotypes and Berlin seems to be summed up in a succession of postcards (Brandenburg Gate, Philharmonic…) summer.
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