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L'Chayim, Comrade
Stalin
review by
Elias Savada, 7 February 2003
Like the swamps on which the
Siberian town Birobidzhan was built, Yale Strom's latest documentary
L'Chayim, Comrade Stalin! is mired in mediocrity. Strom, an
accomplished musician and klezmer revivalist, has made better films
(particularly Carpati: 50 Miles, 50 Years), but has failed to
provide his new outing with much inspiration in telling the story of
founding of the first Jewish homeland.
God Forsaken are the two words that
come to mind in describing the harsh, wintry climate where thousands
of Russian Jews, and many from elsewhere around the world—including
the United States -- immigrated beginning in 1928.
Being Jewish myself and an avid
genealogist interested in my own roots, I am fascinated by what
should be a truly remarkable story of families dispatched to this
far end of the world. Unfortunately the cover director Strom has
wrapped around it is gray and threadbare. Wearing my other glove, as
a film reviewer, I must admit this is not terribly interesting
filmmaking. L'Chayim, Comrade Stalin is a rambling of still
photos, old newsreels, documentaries, propaganda films, poorly lit
and audibly scratchy reminiscences -- in English, Yiddish, and
Russian, nearly all with heavy subtitling -- and street interviews
(many with people who appear to be latent anti-Semites). I couldn't
focus on whether this was a socialist cant or a self-purging,
experimental road movie. Particularly irksome is the constant, and
occasionally subliminal visual peppering of a blood-red reminder
that we must remember "The Jewish Question." Once was enough, twice
okay, but ten or more such flashings and I was ready to scream.
In a nutshell, Joseph Stalin and
his merry Commu-men established the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR)
in the late 1920s, two decades before Palestine became the State of
Israel and usurped the homeland title. In March 2000, director Strom
retraced the steps of many Jews seven decades earlier, traveling
from Moscow east on a seven-day (three days less than his subjects)
journey to a 13,900-square-mile region established to serve the
socialist leader's battle to ease anti-Semitism, improve relations
with the West, and strengthen the borders from possible Chinese or
Japanese invasion. The Yiddish culture thrived as 45,000 Jews
resettled here, but the communal project came to a crashing halt
with Stalin's terrorist, anti-Semitic purges from the late 1940s
through the early 1950s. Still, despite their cultural expulsion a
half-century ago, some 6,000 Jews still thrive in the area
surrounding Birobidzhan, capitol of the J.A.R., as evidenced by the
film's extended musical celebrations by the religiously-strong
residents.
What could have been a
forcefully-framed subject instead meanders around the Siberian
countryside for ninety minutes, stuck in ancestral swamplands and
unsupported by Ron Perlman's bland narration. Audiences hoping to
welcome another film based on Strom's well-respected cinematic
bloodline will be bidding L'Chayim Comrade Stalin an
unfortunate shalom (good bye). |
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