L ifestyles /C ulture
‘Esau’ Puts New Twist on Biblical Brotherhood
FI L M
SOPHIE PANZER | JE STAFF
“EVERYBODY CALLS ME a
writer. But writers write about
people, and all I can write about
is bread,” muses the eponymous
protagonist of “Esau,” director
Pavel Lungin’s new film offering
a modern spin on the famous
biblical brothers.

The movie, based on a novel
of the same name by Israeli
author Meir Shalev, is narrated
by Lior Ashkenazi’s Esau, a food
writer. He returns home to his
family’s Israeli village from his
residence abroad when he hears
that his elderly father Abraham,
played by Harvey Keitel, is
deteriorating. He has not been
back for decades, and his brother
Jacob, played by Mark Ivanir,
has taken over the family bakery.

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He also married the woman
they both love, Leah, played
in her younger years by Shira
Haas. Jacob, bitter at his broth-
er’s abandonment, tells Esau to
stay away, but a call he believes
to be from Leah lures him back
to the village.

It’s a family legacy that treats
linear time as a suggestion rather
than a rule. The camera hops
from the brothers’ Russian
grandfather arriving in Israel to
their birth, to the boys’ youth,
to the present day, to another
moment in the past about their
parents’ courtship at the very end
of the film. The ancient facades
and dirt roads of the village
appear untouched by time, and
the muted colors of the clothing
Harvey Keitel (left) and Lior Ashkenazi in “Esau”
and costumes never look quite
modern, even in the present day.

The film’s main success is between art and life. The fact
“You’ll take it, and you’ll use
its portrayal of the relationship that all screenplays are created it, and you’ll sell it,” he spits.

by writers means there are too “Couple of rats, both of you.”
many films about writers —
The exchange raises valid
starry-eyed new hires at fashion questions about the ethics of
magazines, grizzled crime creating art based on your own
reporters, troubled novelists — life, especially family strife.

but “Esau” actually wields it’s
The great weakness of the
characters’ occupation to great story is its poorly developed
purpose in building a story.

female characters. Anyone
The bulk of the narration familiar with the brothers’
consists of Esau finally pivoting original story can recognize
from bread and attempting to how Leah is objectified. In
write about people by reflecting the Torah, Esau trades Jacob
on why he left home. When his birthright in exchange for
his brother discovers the a bowl of stew. In this film,
typewritten pages, he is furious, he trades it for a glance of
both at the information he Leah’s retreating form through
finds and his assumption that the eyeglasses he is forced to
his brother is trying to make share with his brother due to
money off his experiences.

Abraham’s stinginess.

Jacob is also enraged that
As an adult, Leah withers
his daughter, a photogra- away to a shadow in the wake
pher, is taking candid photos of her son’s death, refusing to
of him for her photography eat, speak or bathe. She is a
exhibition. He loses patience specter hanging over Esau’s
when she sneaks up on him visit and a catalyst for a major
in the bathroom (his reaction fight, but she does basically
is portrayed as harsh, but it’s nothing.

pretty reasonable not to want
Leah is a symbol of the
someone — let alone your own brother’s rivalry, an obstacle in
daughter — barging in while their relationship, rather than
you’re showering to take naked her own person. Haas, whose
photos of you).

star performance in Netflix’s
He accosts both of them for “Unorthodox” established her
trying to profit off his pain.

as one of the most talented
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Jewish actors of her generation,
clearly did her best to portray
Leah’s childhood vibrancy, but
even she could not overcome
such a badly conceived role.

The twins’ mother, Yulia
Peresild’s Sara, is more inter-
esting, but she also finds herself
shrunken before a man taking
up too much space. Abraham
regularly berates her and calls
her a goy, a reference to the
conversion of her Russian
father and her fondness for
Russian folk music. There is
a scene of reconciliation that
is meant to be sweet, but her
husband does little to atone for
his emotional abuse.

In the end, Esau will
remain with audiences for the
questions it poses rather than
the answers it provides.

Is there a morally correct
way to write about people who
have hurt you, and who you
have hurt in turn? Can you
write, or photograph, or paint
your own experiences if they
are shaped by people who want
to be left out of your story? And
if you can’t, are you simply left
writing about bread? l
spanzer@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
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