KIKE LIKE ME (Jamie Kastner, Canada). 86 minutes. Tuesday (April 24), 9:15 pm April 28, 9 pm, Bloor. Rating: NN Rating: NN
In a variation on Gregory Peck’s magazine reporter pretending to be Jewish to expose anti-Semitism in Gentleman’s Agreement, Jamie Kastner performs a similar exercise. The intolerance he uncovers on his expedition heats up when Arabs and Jews meet in a Paris suburb. Their lively debate ends with Kastner telling the Arabs he’s Jewish and their confession that that alone makes them not like him.
Kastner chooses a rough, off-the-cuff shooting style that detracts from these encounters, and the camera often stays on him, missing telling moments with his subjects. Concluding his mission with the same nonchalance with which he seems to have taken it on, he confirms that his road trip was all about sightseeing, with no clear destination, a disservice to his powerful subject.
