Another Everything is Illuminated Review
"Story goes boldly where others fear to tread"
by Katherine Monk
The Ottawa Citizen
Everything is Illuminated ***
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Ethnicity and identity are words often and casually uttered in the same breath, yet their relationship, and the capacity of each to define the other, takes us to the root of the human experience and our larger understanding of our place in the universe.
That's why the younger generation inevitably makes a voyage home to reconnect with living relatives, or with the ghosts of a generation past. There's always the hope that by walking the same streets and visiting the same buildings that formed the backdrop of old family snapshots, we'll somehow find the missing piece of our personal puzzle. We believe we will magically become more whole.
This is the hope that drives young Jonathan (Elijah Wood) to Ukraine. After his grandfather passes on, Jonathan finds two artifacts pointing to a mysterious woman who apparently saved his relatives from the marauding Nazi invaders.
The photo was supposedly taken in Trachimbrod, Ukraine, and though the village name was changed long ago amid the flux of a revisionist socialist landscape, the town represents Jonathan's ultimate destination.
Trachimbrod is Jonathan's Mount Doom, and when he gets there, he attempts to find the ultimate catharsis by letting go of his well-documented, ziplocked emotional baggage.
You see Jonathan is a compulsive collector. Moving through life with more baggies than a crime scene investigator, Jonathan attempts to assemble the bits and pieces of his life like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle -- hoping to mesh a piece of potato with an ancient picture snapped of Trachimbrod.
For him, each artifact is a clue that will ultimately, he believes, lead him to the truth.
It's a nice idea, and an even more convenient device to pull us through a movie. Actor-turned director Liev Schreiber makes the most of it, too.
With little else organizing Jonathan Safran Foer's bestseller into a cinematic format, the ziplock baggies become a dependable motif as they isolate each event, each moment, each building block of personal identity between two thick sheets of sterile plastic.
The whole exercise feels absurd, and that's the correct headspace for this comic leap into the unknown as Jonathan heads back to Ukraine and hooks up with two men who advertise themselves as ethnic guides specializing in Jewish heritage tours, but who turn out to be completely clueless.
Alex and Alex are related, but Alex (the grandfather, Boris Leskin) and Alex (the grandson, Eugene Hutz) are completely different. The younger Alex knows more about American popular culture than Jonathan, and it shows. While Jonathan wears a heavy black suit and black-rimmed glasses, Alex Junior wears colourful track suits, hip-hop bling and T-shirts.
Alex also manages to create many carnal encounters with the ladies as a result of his excellent dancing skills, something that seems to elude Jonathan and his ziplocked landscape.
The elder Alex insists on driving the car. He also insists he is blind, but mostly to ensure the safety of his companion and guide dog Sammy Davis Jr.
Issues of ethnicity arise throughout the film, but Schreiber nudges us closer to the elephant in the living room with every scene, whether it's an argument about Sammy Davis Jr. being Jewish, or an actual reference to the Holocaust. The movie circles around the black hole of Nazi hate and destruction for the duration, but it's really only in the final scenes that Jonathan's long-awaited catharsis finally materializes.
The ending feels a little clunky when it finally arrives, as though Schreiber wasn't quite sure how to shift emotional gears and ends up popping the clutch on the finale.
The best part of this otherwise enjoyable voyage is the road trip across the Ukrainian countryside (actually the Czech Republic), as Wood is given a chance to geek it up and Hutz has a chance to charm the camera with his ample charisma.
It's not a perfect film, but one that goes boldly where so many others fear to tread, and has a fun time doing it.
In other news, quailquill is in town this weekend!