Adam Stein (Jeff Goldblum) is a charming patient at a mental institution for Holocaust survivors in 1961 Israel. His doctor Nathan Gross (Derek Jacobi) is confounded. He is infatuated with nurse Gina Grey (Ayelet Zurer). He is haunted by dogs and starts to hallucinate. He finds a boy acting like a dog under his bed. Before the war, Adam was a magician, all-around entertainer. He was liked by everybody including the Nazis until he was put into a concentration camp. The camp was run by Commandant Klein (Willem Dafoe) who recognized him. Adam survived by playing the part of the Commandant's "dog" while his family is killed off.There is an interesting performance from Jeff Goldblum. However everything else is done with such lifelessness. Both the asylum and the concentration camp are locations of absurd lunacy. There is a rambling nature to the story. It is almost Kafkaesque. I wonder if there is too much time at the asylum. At its core, this must be a battle between Adam and Commandant Klein rather than Adam and the boy. The problem is that the movie spends too little time with Klein.

Not only some deservedly big international actors but also some local favorites from Israel do their best with a script that can scarcely scrape together a brief, weak thread of interest. The movie is based on a book by Yoram Kaniuk, who was also the author of HIMMO, KING OF JERUSALEM. Both stories are about hospitalized men. Evidently Kaniuk identifies with a fantasy protagonist who, by way of great suffering, achieves a martyrdom that returns him to a state of babyhood where he has no responsibilities but is the center of attention and is doted on by a beautiful lady in white. Not a healthy fantasy, but it's not the basic problem of the movie. The basic problem is that the incidents are insistently arbitrary. The hero is at first dependent on a Nazi whose whims are arbitrary. Then he becomes insane, so that his own behavior is arbitrary. Then he's put in a hospital where the rules, as far as the audience can tell, are arbitrary-- restrictive one moment, permissive the next. Unlike the patients in HIMMO, the surrounding patients here are ciphers; they are astoundingly well disciplined, always keeping quiet so that Adam can express himself at will. They restrict their personalities to a single quirk apiece and none of them presents any conflict that could drive a story-- except the boy who behaves like a dog. He presents an opportunity for Adam to redeem himself by helping someone who is in a way his mirror image, and thank goodness for this one escape from the arbitrary succession of dramatic but directionless incidents. Unfortunately it occupies only a little of the movie and is far too sketchy. A dream cast, a fine composer, good visuals-- all wasted.

ADAM RESURRECTED is a strange, mesmerizing art film adapted from Yoram Kaniuk's novel 'Adam Ben Kelev' ('Man, Son of a Dog'), adapted for the screen by Noah Stollman, and brilliantly directed by Paul Schrader, whose contributions to the art of film include writing and/or directing such important works as 'Taxi Driver', 'Raging Bull', 'Affliction', 'The Last Temptation of Christ', Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters', 'American Gigolo', etc. It is another examination of the effects of the Holocaust of the survivors but with such a different twist and graced with some magnificent performances that it stands with the finest films that deal with this subject. Adam Stein (Jeff Goldblum, in an astonishingly fine portrayal) prior to the beginnings of WW II was a highly successful Berlin impresario of a 'Circus' - a cabaret act where he performed acts of magic, comedy, playing the violin, mind reading, doing acts of dagger throwing with his daughter and wife in assistance - a comedian beloved by all his countrymen including the Nazis. When the film opens we are in Tel Aviv in the year 1961 and the mentally disturbed Adam is an on again off again patient in an insane asylum for Holocaust victims, a center of continued 'experiments by a staff of physicians (headed by Dr. Gross - Derek Jacobi and an attendant bizarre nurse Gina - Ayelet Zurer, in love with Adam) who are intimidated by the genius quality of Adam and his ability to keep the inmates happy. In a series of flashbacks (in black and white) to 1926, 1932, and 1944 we see Adam in concentration camps, still entertaining his fellow Jews and asked to play his violin for the Jews who are being escorted into the ovens for cremation. He is observed by Commandant Klein (Willem DaFoe) who had once been entertained by Adam's circus act and later with Adam a prisoner in the concentration camp has Adam act like a dog for Klein's entertainment, a particularly painful duty when later, in the asylum in Israel Adam discovers that Dr. Gross is keeping a young boy on a chain, treating him like a real dog. The relationship between man and dog and dog and dog and man and boy is complex and heartbreakingly somber. The implications and plays within plays that fill this film demand the fell attention of the viewer. Many of the numerous aspects that enhance Paul Schrader's expert telling of this strange story include Gabriel Yared's musical score (with a lot of help from Wagner's 'Tannhauser' and Schubert lieder as sung by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf), the brilliant costuming of actor Jeff Goldblum, and the many small roles in this film filled by some of Germany's and Israel's most gifted actors. But towering over it all is the compelling performance by Jeff Goldblum who has created a character on film that once seen will never be forgotten. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp

Jeff Goldblum plays a Jewish clown who survives the Holocaust by pretending to be Nazi officer Willem Dafoe's dog. Sounds like a tasteless, cheesy Italian movie from the '70s, right? Oh, if only. This cringe-worthy material could have been magic, an easy-made cult classic. Unfortunately, Paul Schraeder directs. I'm sure he's directed a few good films. I've seen one or two okay ones. But he's so boring. He's so literal-minded and unambitious. Adam Resurrected is a first rate bore. Goldblum and Dafoe try to make it "fun", but Schraeder's only interested in making a dire Holocaust picture. We just don't need another one of those. For the record, the Holocaust plot line is really only the flashback sequences. The present-day sequences (set in 1960s Tel Aviv) have Goldblum in a mental hospital, complete with the ultra-lame mental hospital clichés (one woman thinks she's holding up the sky from falling - how wonderful!). He is "resurrected" when he finds a young boy who was raised as a dog and he attempts to cure him.