PAST LIFE (Avi Nesher) 110 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (July 14). See listings. Rating: NNN
Israeli sisters Nana (Nelly Tagar) and Sephi (Joy Rieger) are a study in opposites. Nana is a radical journalist and Sephi is a way more conservative classical singer. So it’s no surprise that when they discover that their doctor father, Baruch (Doron Tavory), may have been lying about his life during the Holocaust, their reactions are very different.
Set in the late 70s, the film gets off to a roaring start when a woman who knew Baruch long ago confronts voice student Sephi in Berlin and makes distressing allegations that he may have collaborated with the Nazis. Then it ratchets up the tension for the first hour.
Scenes inside the newspaper Nana works for reveal intriguing political tensions, and they’re contrasted skilfully with Sephi’s stuffed-shirt world. The characters are well drawn, Nana ready to take on the family patriarch, Sephi, way more compliant. Their father, a respected physician, shows hints of being violence-prone, but that may be a product of his traumatic past.
The story sags in the middle, bogged down by the search for essential information that goes down too many roads.
Still, this story about loss and forgiveness has flashes of very good filmmaking, and the cast, especially Tagar, prickly yet tender, is excellent.
