Last night was amazing!! Went to a free acoustic set by The Beautiful South. It was at a tiny venue on the Lower East Side called Cake Shop. Their website’s calendar is coy. I got the headsup from Oh My Rockness – a great list for keeping up with alterna-indie shows in NYC. They played new songs from their new CD Superbi which is really good and the played classics like Old Red Eyes Is Back, Prettiest Eyes, Perfect 10, Rotterdam and Don’t Marry Her. Paul Heaton even did a little poetry reading.
The Darien Dilemma
Then I went to see a great documentary, The Darien Dilemma, at Makor as part of their Reel Jews festival. A father and his filmmaker son explore the previously untold story of 1,000 Viennese Jews stranded on the frozen Danube River in 1941 as they awaited their would-be rescuer, Ruth Klieger, an agent of the newly created Mossad.
Erez Laufer weaves together interviews with the survivors, archival film, dramatic re-enactments (including scenes of the actors’ preparation – it seems like they stand in for the audience while they get inside the characters’ heads.) and footage of his father the screenwriter.
The director Erez Laufer was at the screening. He notes that the footage of a ship in the film is actually from a ship that set sail a few months prior to the Darien that was shot by a Hungarian sailor, but photos (of youth groups and a massacre) are original and directly linked to the story. Both in the film and in person he explains that his father started looking at archives to find out more about his own history and how his mother escaped Europe with him as a small child.
His father then became intrigued by this story of Ruth Klieger and partially with her reported beauty and alleged affair with David Ben-Gurion. She remained in Israel, worked as a PR person for shipping company ZIM and died in Tel Aviv in 1979.
The film is about her, and not less so about the filmmaker’s father. Through this film many survivors who were interviewed learned a fuller story of what happened when they were brought to Palestine.
It is worth seeing – it is made in an interesting way and tells a compelling and little-known story. Note to documentary filmmakers: Include your notes, interviews, arguments with your father the screenwriter…realize how much central characters may not know about what happened to them….You can buy tickets for December screenings on Makor’s website.
After the film I met Jocelyn and Lee at Bistro 60 for dessert. We had Tarte Tatin – Apple tart with crème fraîche. This is an amazing dessert. We devoured it – moaning all the way. Learned that Hebrew for “to moan” is גניחה – Geniha. Lee was shocked we didn’t know this word. Jocelyn’s response – I’m more of a screamer.
my flickr: The Beautiful South at Cake Shop
