Keeping the Faith

Set against the background of late 20th century New York, this movie presents the themes of interfaith relationships, loyalty, romantic love and the trials of religious calling.  It is treated with humour, realism and sensitivity without being prejudiced or judgmental. Interfaith relationships provide a background to the emotional life of the characters who are Christian and Jewish and reach beyond mere love triangle clichés.

It opens with Brian Finn, now a Catholic priest, who recalls his past involving his best friend Jake Schram, and Anna Reilly, their childhood friend. Brian is a committed pastor assisting in parish work under Father Havel, the senior priest. Jake is in a similar situation; he is the youngest rabbi serving at a synagogue and is not concerned with love and marriage, which his mother Ruth is sad about.

Jake and Brian have a radical view of religious life; they plan to open an interfaith community center for Christians and Jews to come together. Anna is in their thoughts, but she is now out of touch, having left the East Coast with her family for California.

After sixteen years, Anna reappears in their life when she returns to New York, and their friendship is renewed. She begins an affair with Jake, but her non-Jewish background stands in the way of marriage. Added to this is Brian, who has romantic feelings for her and is torn between his celibate life and romantic temptations. At one point, he thinks of giving up the priesthood to pursue his romantic passion.

When Anna meets Ruth during dinner, the old woman tells Anna that she knows about her romance with Jake. An argument regarding Anna being non-Jewish becomes an issue that threatens to break up the affair.  Distressed by the old woman’s opposition, Anna urgently seeks comfort in Brian, to whom she confesses her feelings. Momentarily, Brian mistakes this for Anna’s love for him and kisses her, which Anna rejects and lets Brian know that her true love is Jake.

The distressed Brian wanders through the night streets, drinking and strolls into Jake’s temple in the morning in the midst of a bar mitzvah celebration. They get into a fight. Brian, in distress, visits a bar where he tells his story to the bartender, who gives him sensible advice to solve the issue.

The young priest heeds the advice and seeks his senior priest Father Havel’s guidance and decides to continue in his vocation with a renewed spirit. The story ends on a note of reconciliation and joyful reunion of the friends, and anticipating the reunion of the lovers. 

Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

Runtime: 181 minutes.

Director: Norman Jewison

Cast: Chaim Topol, Norma Crane, Leonard Frey, Molly Picon, Paul Mann, Rosalind Harris, Michèle Marsh, Neva Small and Paul Michael Glaser.

This classic Hollywood musical is a movie adaptation of the 1964 Broadway musical hit created by Joseph Stein, Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick and John Williams; it is originally drawn from the stories of the renowned late 19th century Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem, presenting Jewish life in 19th century Czarist Russia.

Blending pathos and comedy, it presents the struggle between tradition and change, romance and family drama, together with themes of prejudice, tradition, and the unpredictability of human life. The setting is Anatevka, a fictional Ukrainian Jewish settlement where Jews mostly live apart.

The chief character and narrator, Tevye, is a dairyman with five daughters and his wife Golde, living a precarious life outside the pale of mainstream society. He guides us through the episodes that reveal their life conditions. He is hard-working, a loving husband and father, but is strict about maintaining traditional values and customs. This becomes a point of conflict between him and his daughters, who choose to marry for love, defying custom.

According to Jewish customs, it is matchmakers who help choose husbands for girls. The story opens with the title song in which Tevye compares the lives of the Jews of Anatevka to a fiddler on the roof, using tradition to “scratch out a pleasant, simple tune” without falling off the roof. He is faced with the challenge of marrying off his five daughters amid growing social tensions around him.

            Tevye meets a young Jewish university student from Kyiv, named Perchik, who is passing through Anatevka. He hosts Perchik in his house to stay there tutoring his daughters. Perchik is a man with radical views of religion and espouses Bolshevism which influences his pupils too.

Tevye wants his eldest daughter Tzeitel to marry widower Lazar Wolf, the wealthy elderly local butcher, whom Yente, the customary matchmaker, has arranged. Tzeitel resists. She has already promised to marry her childhood sweetheart, Motel, the tailor. Tevye has a poor opinion of the timid, humble tailor, but has to give in to his daughter’s wish, though he feels bad about humiliating Lazar Wolf.

He and Yente had promised Tzeitel to Wolf. Worried about his wife Golde’s opposition to the marriage, Tevye lies to her about a false prophetic dream, according to which Tzeitel is destined to marry Motel, but Lazar's dead wife will haunt her if she does so. 

However, the marriage takes place. The story ends on a mixed note of sadness and hope as the community is forced to leave Anatevka to escape the persecution they are warned about.  The final scene presents the old man longingly looking back at the deserted village where they once lived a happy life bound to their traditions.