Day 15 One
Of Us [2017 documentary]
Director Heidi Ewing &
Rachel Grady
Cinematography Jenni Morello & Alex Takats
Music
Composition Gavin Brivik
Subject Three ex-members of the Hasidic Jewish
community and their struggle to escape the extreme religious community.
Production Loki Films
IMDb 7.2/10
Rotten Tomatoes 95%
Netflix
have certainly upped their game with regard to distributing quality films
amongst all the shit that’s on there. They are especially good at picking
documentaries, from Netflix I’ve watched 13th, Virunga, Searching
For Sugarman, Blackfish, McConkey, Supermensch, The Square, the list goes
on and on. This was another impressive doc. Not as good as any of the ones that
I’ve just mentioned, but good all the same. It follows three Hasidic Jews who
have broken out, or are trying to break out of the Hasidic community in
Brooklyn, New York. It’s pretty shocking actually. I didn’t know much about
Hasidic Jews, and there are certainly positives to their intense community life
– like if you’re ill someone will look after your children and come over and
care for you. More scarily however, this intense unity extends to protecting
those who are in the wrong. It’s really fucked up how patriarchal the community
is and how they will just simply turn their backs on someone trying to leave
the 'family'. The film-making is what lets it down. It moves along at a pretty
slow pace and I feel they could have tried to interview members of the Hasidic
Community more. Perhaps they tried – Hasidic Jews are against most forms of
technology and a lot of secular culture, and they are all controlled by the
Rabbis – I’m sure they got nowhere and decided to stick to the three stories. I
think there is definitely scope for a documentary infiltrating the community,
it would be extremely tough, but it may be ground-breaking. Anyway I learnt
something, there were some very sad moments, and the structure was good. Worth
a watch.
Subject Matter 3 / 4
Shock Factor 3.5 / 4
Production 2.5 / 4
Music 1 / 4
HWF rating 2.5 / 4