Hester Street Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

Low-budget cult perfection...

Made on a tiny tiny budget (don't watch it if you can't stick boom-shots and wobbly cameras) by the hugely underrated director Joan Micklin-Silver, this is a great example of how to craft something original and powerful with next to nothing.

A simple tale of the impoverished lives and messy loves of Jewish immigrants in end of the 19th century New York, this manages to avoid all the usual sentimental cliches you might aniticipate here, and you end up with a beautifully shot, grittily acted, funny, disturbing, very truthful little movie.

The recreation of the period is very skillful, aided in particular by the superb cinematography - scenes are lit in a terrifically evocative on-the-hop style, and period detail of the 'forget the acting, check out the genuine vintage cars!' type is left in the background rather than thrust in your face as it so often is in more big-budget productions, and the characters are complex and challenging. Kane is terrific, as are all the supporting actors, but special mention must go to Steven Keats, who manages to keep you caring for a character who essentially behaves appallingly throughout the entire movie!

If you need some kind of comparison, I suppose it's not unlike the kind of detailed character -driven pictures John Sayles makes (though without the politics upfront), but really it's more of a European picture, focusing as it does on relationships and atmosphere. The penultimate scene in which the central couple basically watch each other, saying next to nothing, whilst a ceremony (I won't tell you which one for the sake of spoilers) goes on around them, is an example of the kind of grippingly simple drama this director has always been a master of.

It is rough and ready, so be prepared to stick with it a little, but I think it is full of rewards, and the kind of tight, lovingly-made gem you just don't see often any more.

Watched it once, and it's already a personal favourite.

Hester Street

Although for a modern audience it has limited production values and some of the acting tends to be melodramatic, Hester Street is not without charm. The sound quality and thick accents often require careful attention (it is easier when subtitles are required for the occasional Yiddish dialogue) but you cannot help but feel for Gitl as a Jewish fish out of water trying hard to please her Americanised husband. And if you think you recognise the rabbi, Zvee Scooler, you probably do because it is the same actor essentially recreating the part he played in Fiddler on the Roof (both the Broadway musical and the film).