Arranged marriages in the Chassidic Jewish community in Jerusalem, Israel; not an easy subject, since it is basically morally reprehensible. But I was surprised to witness that the film gets away with it. The ending doesn't suggest at all that they will live happily ever after, and before that, the film tells a well balanced story about all those directly involved.Hadas Yaron did an amazing job and has a natural presence that took me in straight away, but the rest of the cast did very well, too. The photography is beautiful and subtle. It took me a little while to get into the story and the experience of it all, but once it did (about some twenty minutes in), it didn't let me go until the very end.A good 8 out of 10.

The Israeli film Lemale et ha'halal was shown in the United States with the title "Fill the Void" (2012). It was written and directed by Rama Burshtein. Other films exist about highly observant Jews, both in Israel and the U.S. However, this movie is unusual because the director herself if part of the orthodox community. She knows how people act, what they say, how they celebrate, and how they mourn. As in many communities where a woman's outside options are limited, marriage is a central and crucial moment in their lives. Matches are arranged, but the woman always has the right to turn down a prospective suitor. Even so, the decision about whom to marry is critically important. The wonderful young Israeli actor Hadas Yaron plays Shira, whose time for marriage has come. A match has been made, and Shira is excited about meeting the young man and, presumably, falling in love with him. Then tragedy strikes. Shira's loving older sister dies in childbirth, leaving behind a baby boy and a widower. In order to keep the family together, it is suggested that Shira marry the baby's father. He appears to be a fine man, but he's older than she is. Also, as Shira points out, she had dreams of exploring marriage with a young man, not with a previously-married man who has a child.It would have been easy for the director to craft a story where the whole community is pushing Shira to marry Yochay, her late sister's widower. That's not how the film was crafted. Everyone respects Shira's right to decide, and Yochay isn't desperate, either. A match has been made for him with a woman from Belgium. (The problem is that he'd have to move to Belgium to be with her, and, of course, he'd take his infant son with him.)You'll have to see the film to find out what happens next. However, the movie is far more than just a vehicle for a plot. It's an intimate look into the lives of the ultra-orthodox, and into the heart and mind of a young woman who wants to do what is right, but also what is best.Fill the Void won six Israeli Academy Awards, including Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Film. Hadas Yaron won the Best Actress award at the 2012 Venice Film Festival.We saw this film at Rochester's Dryden Theatre as part of the exceptional Rochester Jewish Film Festival. I think it will work better on a large screen than on DVD, but it's worth searching for it and seeing it on a small screen if necessary. For reasons I can't understand, this movie has a lukewarm IMDb rating of 6.6. Why? It's a brilliant film and deserves to be seen. Ignore the low rating, and don't miss "Fill the Void."

As a watcher of many movies I often find myself bored at watching the same tired clichés recycled over and over and packaged as original movies.Thats why i was refreshed to watch this movie- a film that has an original story and gives us a look at a different world.I found the casting to be excellent. The male lead was strong & handsome and inhabited his role with controlled emotion and dignity. The female lead was beautiful in an innocent way and her demure manner and emotional expressions were well suited for her role.Well done & thanks for a good film experience!

Over the last dozen or so years, no less than seven films have been made about the orthodox religious community in Israel. These films are:Forbidden Love (1999); Kadosh (1999); Bat Kol (Inner Voice) (2002); Ushpizin (2004); My Father, My Lord (2007); The Secrets (2007); Eyes Wide Open (2009).All these films were made by non-religious or at least non-orthodox film makers, and then along came Fill the Void. Its director and scriptwriter, Rama Burshtein, is an orthodox woman who is also a film maker.Which raises the question whether this new film is more authentic than the previous ones, whether it portrays the orthodox community more faithfully. It should be understood that the orthodox communities in Israel are tightly-knit units, abhorring the outside, modern Western way of life which they perceive as decadent, immoral and corruptive. They still dress as did their ancestors in the Shtetl in Eastern Europe centuries ago, talk mostly Yiddish among themselves and of course, inter-marry only within their milieu.Fill the Void is indeed about this latter issue, the question of marriage. The questions raised by the protagonists may seem quaint and even amusing to us, but seem of paramount importance to them, as if no other issues occupy their closed life.This reviewer has no way of assessing the veracity of the facts and can only rely on subjective impressions. The film "rings true", feels true, and the fact that some of the actors come from a religious background adds to the feeling. Viewers might sneer at the seemingly irrelevant questions facing those "strange" people, but the acting convincingly conveys the sentiment that we are indeed dealing with a grave situation.I came out of the theater thinking not about the heroine, blandly played by Hila Feldman, or about the way she handles her private demons and dilemmas, but about the strange, foreign, incomprehensible community living not a mile away from my house in the same city, yet separated from me by an unbridgeable chasm.A disturbing movie.