Yaelle Kayam's Mountain tells the story of Tzvia, a young Orthodox Jewish woman who is the mother to four children and a very religious husband. Living a life where she feels unappreciated and unloved by her husband, Tzvia becomes infatuated by a nocturnal community of prostitutes and drug dealers that congregate in the ancient cemetery on top of Jerusalem's Mount of Olives. First time filmmaker Yaelle Kayam's Mountain is an interesting character study about a woman who struggles with her faith and devotion, growing tired of a husband who neglects her and hides behind religion. It's an interesting film about the fragility of a character who feels unloved, offering up a rather shocking finale which intentionally or not, reveals the darker aspects of the oppression Orthodox religion has on individuals, particularly woman. I'm not sure if it's the film's intention or not, but the ending seems to suggest that Tzvia has come to her sense about her faith and devotion to her husband and family, but she resorts to violence and death to do so, as if Mountain wants to draw attention to the penchant for violence which can exist in strict, organized religion. Tzvia didn't strike me as a particularly devout Orthodox woman throughout the film, so her act of violence in the end makes me think the director's intentions are to cast a shadow over religion, showing how one woman's fragility centered around being neglected could lead to such extreme measures for the sake of her faith. Tzvia feels like a character that resents her religion throughout most of the film, due to her husbands lack of empathy, which is why she befriends the degenerates in the cemetery in the first place. In the finale, where she poisons these individuals, Mountain feels more like a tragedy, not due to the death of these bottom-feeders, but to the fact that Tzvia seems to have fully accepted her role in Orthodox Jewish society, going to extreme measures to cleanse herself of outside influences and become the docile, second-class citizen that her religion demands. Of all the films which I've seen so far at the festival this is the one I have the most regret for missing the Q&A, as I'm still not completely sure my interpretation is at all what the filmmaker was trying to say. A detailed character study with a strong central performance, Yaelle Kayam's Mountain is a quiet, unsettling experience, that puts the viewer into the psyche of a young woman who is repressed by the religion she follows.
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June 2023
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