Reviews Sep 29 2008 @ 08:40 pm
REVIEW: Jellyfish
Directed By: Shira Geffen & Etgar Keret
Written By: Shira Geffen
Starring: Sarah Adler, Noa Knoller, Ma-nenita De Latorre, Nikol Leidman
Running Time: 78 minutes
Not Rated
This review was originally published July 28th, 2008.
An unkempt woman sits by herself on the beach, both physically and emotionally alone. Her only companion is the endless ocean, but it is the perfect one. And then a little girl appears, wearing only a red and white inner tube, walking out of the waves like Neptune’s daughter herself. Her striking blue eyes are intensely innocent, and damp red ringlets surround a cherub’s face. She stops next to the woman, saying nothing, only staring unblinkingly. The woman looks back, confused and amazed and wondering. Then she stands up, turns to leave, and the watery nymph follows her.
It is a moment of astonishing beauty and it took my breath away when I saw it. Jellyfish is a film filled with such moments. The directorial debut of husband-wife team Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen, it is nearly impossible to adequately describe. I could say it deals with three very different women in Israel – Batia (Sarah Adler), a catering waitress, Keren (Noa Knoller), newly married, and Joy (Ma-nenita De Latorre), a Fillipino caretaker – whose lives all intersect early in the film at Keren’s wedding, but that isn’t what Jellyfish is about. I could tell you that the plot entails Batia attempting to discover where the little girl’s parents are, but that is only a fraction of the film. Perhaps it is the story of Keren and her husband discovering that married life will not solve all of their problems like they thought it would…but no, no, that isn’t it at all.
Nikol Leidman as the stunning little girl, along with Batia (Sarah Adler).
Jellyfish is not about story or plot, and sometimes it isn’t even about character. It weaves an ephemeral, delicate mood that is at once sublime and lonely and surreal and hopeful and inexplicable and tender and tragic. Moments like the one above are sprinkled throughout the film: Batia tips her head back and opens her mouth underneath a ceiling leak; Keren draws the outline of a bottle around a cruise ship on a brochure; Joy discovers her elderly ward has passed away while a fundraising commercial for the poor and downtrodden plays on television; a toy boat, lost and then found, wordlessly knits two strangers together in tears; a police officer folds a missing persons report into the shape of a boat and blows it across the table with the words, “Lost at sea.” The film’s delicate magic (located in these scenes and others), which I am utterly failing to do justice to, is intoxicating.
People from completely different walks of life connect with one another.
While not an identical twin, Jellyfish could be a close sibling to Lost in Translation, another film about isolation that played out in the moments between the plot rather than in the plot itself. The three women here, like Scarlett Johanson and Bill Murray, are cut off from meaningful human contact, islands in a sea of superficiality. Their romantic relationships are broken. Their parents care more about others than about their own children. Their employers, intent on the status quo, fire them. They are adrift, washing up along the shore like flotsam and jellyfish. One crotchety character, when asked if she would like to go to the beach, indirectly sums up the world’s attitude towards their plight: “What’s on the beach besides dog sh*t and jellyfish?” Each is metaphorically lost in a solitary ocean, but each is also physically drawn to the sea, in different ways but for the same reason: it’s comforting to gaze into the face of something more endless than your own loneliness.
When Batia asks to see a friend’s old Super-8 home movies, the friend begs off, insisting that they’re boring: “There’s no plot development.” “I don’t like developments,” Batia replies. It’s as good a description of Jellyfish as any. I do not know how to recommend this film to you, only to say that when I sat down to watch it, I wasn’t expecting much, but by the end I was positively spellbound. If you’re willing to embrace it, Jellyfish is a cinematic experience unlike any other.
on Jul 28 2008 @ 3:53 pm 1. Alexander Coleman said …
I couldn’t read the review, as I want to see the film first, but I really do want to see this.
on Jul 28 2008 @ 11:21 pm 2. Fox said …
Good write-up…
I also found the image of Batia underneath the roof one that lingered in my head after the film was over. That actress is gorgeous. The camera just loves her.
on Jul 29 2008 @ 10:20 am 3. Daniel said …
Really well done, Evan. I have to admit I was hoping you were going to piece things together for me a little bit more, but, as I now do, you complete accept the fact that Jellyfish has little to do with “story” and lots to do with character. But regarding the plot, K. Bowen has had some interesting thoughts on it, including the theory that *****SPOILER***** the young bride is actually a version of the older female writer at the hotel, and that (this one was pretty obvious) the little girl is the same as our main character.
I also agree with KB that the Filipina storyline wasn’t terribly interesting, at least compared to the others.
Sarah Adler was perfect for her part, as Fox mentions. Didn’t require a ton of acting range, but her quiet demeanor was what was needed.
I was actually going to write a “Taking It Home” review about Jellyfish, but it just didn’t come together in my head and I lazily gave up instead of really sitting down and hammering it out. It’ll be interesting to hear what others think as more people see it.
on Jul 29 2008 @ 3:18 pm 4. Evan Derrick said …
Daniel, I saw K’s note over at his site and thought it was a brilliant observation (wish I had thought of it myself). As I chewed it over, I realized that the parallels could be applied to all three women. This is what I wrote over at Anti-D:
“Oh, I like that thought! I definitely caught whiffs of that between Batia and the little girl, but I think you may be dead on with the bride and the writer, especially considering the symmetry of their poems/suicide notes. And, you know what? You could make the same parallel true for joy. She is on the road to becoming estranged from her son (who is back in the Philippines), and she is working with an elderly woman who is completely estranged from her adult daughter. Joy and the crotchety old woman are the same person at different stages as well.”
I think that is spot on, and it makes me love the film even more.
on Jul 29 2008 @ 10:21 pm 5. Daniel said …
Oh man, there goes my Filipina-being-the-weak-link argument. Nice catch!
on Jul 30 2008 @ 8:52 pm 6. Sam Juliano said …
Definitely a superior film review, although I admit I haven’t caught up with this film just yet. I was in the minority with LOST IN TRANSLATION, but I will go in clear-headed.
on Jul 30 2008 @ 9:28 pm 7. Evan Derrick said …
Well, Sam, if it’s any consolation, Lost In Translation completely underwhelmed me, and I still loved this film. I think a lot of it had to do with all the critical and Oscar hype that went ahead of LIT before I saw it – I expected it to be the second coming of the indie film, which is most certainly wasn’t.
Here I felt like I was discovering the film for myself, which I think is key given this kind of moody, atmospheric piece of cinema. The comparisons to LIT are unquestionable, but I ended up liking this one much, much, much more than Coppola’s.
on Jul 30 2008 @ 9:51 pm 8. Sam Juliano said …
Fair enough Evan, and I look forward to it. I can well understand how you were underwhelmed by LIT, in view of the truth of what you say here.
on Aug 05 2008 @ 11:02 pm 9. K. Bowen said …
This film really does linger, doesn’t it? Thanks for the compliments, guys. I think the relationship between the bride and the writer is an interesting topic.
By the way, does anyone know anything about Sarah Adler? I’ve never found less biographical information on an actress, ever, beyond that she appears to be an American.
on Aug 06 2008 @ 3:55 pm 10. Olivia said …
There is a lot of information on Sarah Adler in Hebrew, so here it goes, roughly: she is French and Israeli, but lived in New York for several years, studying at Lee Strasberg’s. She played in Jean-Luc Godard’s “Notre Musique”, Richard Dembo’s “La Maison de Nina”, Raphael Nadjari’s “Avanim”, among others. She works a lot in Israel. Check her out in Joseph Pitchhadze’s “Shnat Effes” (”Year Zero”). Stunning!
http://turnerclassic.moviesunlimited.com/results_actor.asp?search=Sarah+Adler
on Aug 06 2008 @ 4:38 pm 11. Evan Derrick said …
Thankyou, Olivia, for all the great info! Adler reminded me a bit of Sophia Coppola, which is particularly interesting given the similarities to Jellyfish and Lost in Translation.
on Aug 07 2008 @ 1:29 am 12. Olivia said …
Well, she did play in “Marie-Antoinette”…
on Oct 11 2008 @ 12:45 am 13. Joel said …
Great review, Evan. You really nailed the ephemeral quality of this movie that just quietly reels you in, hook, line, and sinker. I agree that the film doesn’t seem so concerned with characters or plot so much as mood and poetic moments. Unlike K, I didn’t find the symbolism too overwhelming, but I agree it is overt.
This is going to be one of those movies I can’t easily recommend to people even though I really enjoyed it because I think my enjoyment of it might be fairly subjective and difficult to convey.
I loved the flotsam and jellyfish line too!