Apples from the Desert

In Brief: This week, the Asheville Jewish Film Festival is showing the Israeli drama Apples from the Desert (2014). Moran Rosenblatt stars as Rebecca Abravanel, an only child who is unfulfilled by her strictly Orthodox life in modern Jerusalem, under the patriarchal hand of an unbending father (Shlomi Koriat) and a subservient mother (Reymond Amsallem). Unbeknownst to her parents, Rebecca rebels by starting to flirt with a secular lifestyle, especially as concerns Dooby (Israeli singer-guitarist Elisha Banai), a young man from a kibbutz who coaxes her to a join a dance class he's part of. Her father's response to her rebelliousness is to agree to marry her to an older man, which, needless to say, doesn't play well. In essence, it's a fairly standard culture-and-generation-clash drama of a very old kind. However, it's done so well and with such attention to detail, you probably won't mind. You certainly won't mind Rosenblatt's Rebecca. Not only is she luminous, she captures the character with amazing nuance.