Or chalitzah, in Rabbinic Judaism, is the process by which a childless widow and her deceased husband's brother can avoid the obligation to marry according to the biblical system of yibbum. This law requires Rosa to marry Nissim, her deceased husband's younger brother, but she refuses this imposition, asserting her will over that of the community, a reflection of oppressive social control. Hers is a portrait of resilience to social pressure, marginalization, and prejudice, asserting her dignity in a patriarchal religious context. The Jewish quarter of Jerusalem in which it is set at the end of the 19th century demonstrates the characteristic aspects of this kind of society, leading to reflection on how the community shapes the individual. Mizrahi portrays the respect due to those who, emotionally immature, are still unable to distinguish the complexity of desire between forbidden taboo and consensual affection.
The beautiful Rosa (Michal Bat-Adam) becomes a widow at a young age. Jewish law dictates that she marry her husband's brother, eleven-year-old Nissim (Gabi Otterman), but she opposes this senseless tradition. Nissim runs away from home due to disagreements with his mother and his other brother's wife. Rosa takes him in like a son, with the approval of the rabbi (Avner Hizkiyahu), awaiting their future marriage. Indeed, despite her friend Jamila's (Levana Finkelstein) attempts to change her mind, she decides to use the Halizah ceremony to reject the shotgun wedding. Only after Nissim (Moshe Tal) has become a self-aware adult does Rosa confess that she has always loved him.
Director Moshe Mizrahi (6.0) adopts an intimate style, avoiding melodrama but aiming for the realism of silences, more eloquent than empty dialogue; the screenplay (6.5), by the director himself, features a traditional narrative from his own family, reenacting the events of his grandmother's life handed down to him; technically (5.0), particularly noteworthy are Adam Greenberg's cinematography, praiseworthy for integrating the film's extraordinary snowfall into Jerusalem as a poetic metaphor for the purity and suspension of time, and the soundtrack of Dov Seltzer, which emphasizes the emotional dimension without ever being invasive, almost liturgical in some passages; the cast (6.5) is good, thanks above all to the raw talent of Bat-Adam and the skill of seasoned character actors like Hizkiyahu.
Best moments: the ceremony begins, they don traditional clothing, the rabbi begins the trial, they read the words of the sacred texts, then the sandal appear, she takes it, and instead of spitting on it... she interrupts the ritual, because no tradition can "free her," because she is already free to choose her future. A must-see for those who love timeless love stories, but also to reflect on patriarchal society and the condition of women.
