Shtisel

[smokingboot]

That was a grand night's sleep, a sleep of purple.

I went to bed before 9, got up at 7; it's a good feeling. Let's see how long it lasts.

Watched Shtisel thanks to the enthusiasm of Mallory's_Camera.

It's gently mesmerising. The first thing I realised is that I have never heard Yiddish spoken. Of course individual words like Shalom are familiar but never conversations running and moving; I have heard more Setswana spoken than this language which has been around us in London for so long! And how used I am to Romance languages and those with Germanic roots, random chunks of Gaelic and Basque and Flemish, how very European in my observation!

It's strange to see myself defined by such limits of understanding.

I try to adjust, confused. Shtisel; where is it set? Jerusalem? When is it set? I still can't answer this; from the women's clothes I could assume it's current but it could be any time from the 90s, maybe even the 70s onward. The fund baffles me. Are these people rich or poor? They can't be poor if he's got all these heaters but they can't be rich if they need them. I'm not seeing much on the walls, I'm not seeing much in the way of possessions. I can't even identify the food.

The zoo I understand. The TV I understand. Akiva's eyes expressing his feelings towards Israel's mother I understand. It is very tender. I think I'm in something that is at least, part love story.

I'll keep watching.

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

Contemporary Jerusalem. 😀 Akiva and his tribe are ultra-ultra-Orthodox Jews—kinda like Hasids except they don't follow a charismatic Reb who thinks he's the Messiah. 😀

Most of Shtisel is actually filmed in Hebrew. The only time it switches to Yiddish is when someone is talking to Malka or another one of the older characters. I recognize Yiddish from my remote childhood, so I could recognize the language shifts—although I wouldn't say I speak Yiddish in any real sense. I can easily see how one wouldn't make the distinction between the two languages if one didn't know two languages were being spoken.

The subtextual storytelling is really quite profound. For example: Episode 1 starts and ends with snow. Akiva dreams of his mother inside a cafe—and most inexplicably, snow falls. At the end of the episode, Akiva's brother pulls the cable loose from the TV (to protect his grandmother from secularism) and she tries to watch the static on the screen. Our term for that static is "snow." 😀 But most importantly, the reading is that in this culture, women are left out in the cold. 😀

Can compassion ever override religion? That's one of Shtisel's central themes. The show has a real Shakespearian complexity to it—although, obviously, it takes place in a culture we are completely unfamiliar with.

[smokingboot]

Oh, so is it Hebrew I am hearing? You are quite right, I don't hear the difference, and have never heard either Yiddish or Hebrew!

I hadn't even thought of the static and snow, though I felt furious with Akiva's brother for pulling the cable loose, as though he couldn't bear her having a window on a world beyond his control.

Your interpretation of the dream is fascinating and would never have occurred to me. I may have to go through the series to anchor myself in the world, and then go back to try and understand the layers of it.