Mountain

Yaelle Kayam's debut feature is a nuanced character study centering on Zvia (Shani Klein), an Orthodox Jewish woman who lives with her husband Reuven (Avshalom Pollak) and their four children at the edge of a huge, crowded cemetery on the slope of Jerusalem's Mount of Olives. Reuven, a Yeshiva teacher who is mostly away at work, has grown increasingly distant from his wife even when he is home, and the children—especially the oldest daughter—are becoming restive as well. Starved for supportive human interaction, Zvia converses with the graveyard's sympathetic Palestinian caretaker, and even makes contact with the worldly souls—prostitutes, pimps, and drug-dealers—who frequent the cemetery as a base of operations (she even goes so far as to bring them food). Her yearnings are also mirrored in her fascination with the poetry of a woman buried there, which she pores over as she sits by the latter's tombstone. Mountain does not pretend to fully explain Zvia's personality or resolve her issues, but it offers a commendably subtle glimpse into the psyche of a woman straining to balance the demands of her religious beliefs with her human needs. Recommended. (F. Swietek)