Security up and crowds down at Windsor Jewish fest, and a French romantic icon

The 21st annual Windsor Jewish Film Festival is off to a great start at a different location this year, the downtown Capitol Theatre. The city’s Jewish federation said there would be stepped-up security and so there has been, with a well identified city police cruiser parked right in front of the theatre entrance on University Ave. and with a few officers outside or in the lobby. Opening night for the documentary The Catskills (Lex Gillespie) took place in the main Pentastar Theatre but subsequent nights (the fest continues through today with three films per day) are in the smaller Kelly Theatre. Are crowds smaller? It would seem so and there might be a good reason, given international political events which have spread currents worldwide including here. But there’s nothing to fear. Security is tight, food and beverages available, and those who have been attending are having a good time. As for the films,  Listen (Omri Bezalel), uncannily depicts a situation that is similar to the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, about a determined young IDF officer whose dilemma is to save an Israeli prisoner or eliminate future terrorist threats. Very realistic, I was surprised it was made in the United States and not Israel. Meanwhile, The Man in the Basement (Philippe Le Guay) poses the dilemma of whether free inquiry should be tolerated even if it questions an historical event like The Holocaust. I was slightly surprised to see it in the lineup, and while powerfully acted and suspenseful, even the filmmakers come to no conclusion, as the events depicted end abruptly, making me wonder if they copped-out.

The death of French film star, Anouk Aimée at 92, affected me more than most acting deaths. She was a great beauty who, in one obit, is described as appealing to “unreconstructed romantics.” That’s me! She’s best remembered for her role in Claude Lelouch’s 1966 A Man and a Woman with Jean Louis Trintignant. But, as coincidence would have it, last Sunday I watched Federico Fellini’s famed 1963 8½, which also stars her as protagonist film director Guido Anselmi’s (Marcello Mastroianni) wife Luisa. I didn’t recognize her at first, her hair cropped short and wearing thick 1960s era squarw glasses. I would never have suspected the same woman who, while attractive, didn’t have the allure of the longer haired beauty in Lelouch’s film. Superficial appearances run deep! As for 81/2, which I’d seen snippets of in the past and is considered one of the best films ever made, I found myself at the end of it reflecting “This is two hours and 18 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.” With no real plot line, discombobulated sets and entourages prancing around hither and yon among, it looks like a film made up on the fly.