PAST LIFE – St. Louis Jewish Film Festival Review

Tuesday, June 6, at 1 PM, Plaza Frontenac Cinema

Israel; in Hebrew, English, German, and Polish with English subtitles; 110 minutes

Two sisters uncover their father’s secret past in the true story-based Israeli mystery PAST LIFE, one of the films playing as part of the annual St. Louis Jewish Film Festival. The film is also set to return to the Plaza Frontenac Cinema on June 9 for a longer theatrical run.

The film is an intriguing look into Israel in the late 1970s, before the fall of the Berlin Wall and crumbling of European communism, when many survivors of the Holocaust did not speak about their wartime experiences as they focused on building their young nation.

In 1977, young Sephi Milch (Joy Rieger), an Israeli music student with a lovely soprano voice but ambitions to be a composer, travels to West Berlin for a concert with her school choir. After the concert, an elderly woman (Katarzyna Gniewkowska) runs up to her and, speaking in Polish, loudly accuses Sephi’s father of murder. Sephi is both rattled and mystified by the incident, despite an apology from the woman’s son, a renowned German composer (Rafael Stachowiak) who had attended the concert.

Back in Israel, Sephi wants to put the unsettling event behind her but her older sister Nana (Nelly Tagar) senses something is wrong. Shy Sephi reluctantly tells her about the incident but makes her bolder, older sister promise to say nothing to their stern, demanding father or emotional, sensitive mother (Evgenia Dodina). Dr. Baruch Milch (Doron Tavory) is a successful gynecologist but, like many Holocaust survivors in Israel, he had never talked to his daughters about his past. Nana is a rebellious young woman, a budding journalist who resents her father for his harsh treatment of her as a child. She tackles the mystery, bent on uncovering the truth about their father’s wartime experiences. But what the sisters uncover is a mystery that just keeps getting deeper and more complex the further they dig.

Atmospheric, tense and moving, PAST LIFE is directed by award-winning Israeli writer/director Avi Nesher, who has indicated that the film is the first of three films in a series. The son of Holocaust survivors himself, Nesher based his script on the wartime diaries of Dr. Baruch Milch, “Can Heaven Be Void?”

The twisty mystery is indeed intriguing, taking the sisters and the audience down a rabbit hole of secrets. The younger sister wants to dismiss what was said to her but the older sister embraces the idea of their father’s violent past. What they uncover if far different from what either expect.

In the film, the sisters could not be more different. Quiet, shy, obedient Sephi focuses her entire life on her music, struggling with her dreams to be a composer while her teachers dismiss that idea and tell her to focus on singing. Nana is loud, defiant, at times outrageous, and frustrated in her ambition to do real journalism, while stuck in a job at a tawdry, low-rent newspaper. Sephi still lives at home with her parents but Nana is married, although she does not always get along with her less-ambitious husband. Yet the sister grow  closer as the mystery unfolds. Family dynamics are part of this story, as well as women’s career ambitions, and the lingering post-war human trauma, in this historic tale.

Nesher brilliantly builds suspense, and the fine cast bring out layers of character, that deepening the moving story. That cast also includes Evgenia Dodina, a well-known Israeli star, as the sisters’ nervous mother, but the strong performances by Rieger and Tagar as the two sisters are the center around which this winding-path story is wrapped.

The film is shot in a visually rich style, that adds to the dramatic effect. Music plays a central role in this film, and the moving music choices, a mix of classical and pop, frame the edge-of-your-seat story brilliantly. The soundtrack features original music by classical composer Ella Milch-Sheriff, the real daughter of Dr. Milch on whom the Sephi character is based. Films described as “based on true events” can diverge widely from facts but Nesher makes an effort to stick closely to the real events.

PAST LIFE is a polished and haunting drama that keeps the audience hooked with its suspenseful plot, affecting performances led by two strong female leads, and a heart-wrenching true story.