Madam Yankelova's Fine Literature Club (2017) User Reviews

Anti-Love women use literature to lure men to death

[maurice_yacowar · 7/10 · 5 June 2018]

This post-feminist Gothic thriller reminds us that not all of Israel's very fine cinema is concerned with religion or politics. Or does it? Beneath the genre innocence here there is a reflection on the inescapability of traditional politics structures (aka strictures). The plot recalls Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. A mysterious secret organization of women stage lavish evenings of erotic force. But this group is dedicated to the denial of love. There is no such thing as love, these women avow, as they celebrate escape from its traditional thrall. Women members have to bring suitable specimens of men to the weekly celebration of fine food and literature. Indeed the organization even runs a library and neighbouring residence ("No men allowed") for its entry level members. The evening's pretence is to celebrate fine literature. Hence the library front, where ideas and culture provide the lure that might otherwise be the raised skirt at a highway pickup (though that may be deployed as necessary too). In the event, the men are captured, killed and - by implication - ground up and re-cased as wieners, for sale at the community park hot dog stand. That's the film's central metaphor: these women reduce the male phallic power to weenies. From hot stud to hot dog in one eve, literature the lure. As women have been, these men are measured, reduced to statistics, and rated on a percentage scale, though the calibrations are on the head not bust, hips and waist. Progress. The plot gives the women the ruling authority and power. Madam Jankelova herself is the traditional old crone, shrunken but still the unquestioned authority. Her main lieutenant Razia also happens to be the town's police chief, so this underworld society directly parallels the legitimate one outside. Her position lets her hide the missing men files the sorority has been producing. But this women's revolution is dramatically incomplete. As heroine Sophie's chief rival demonstrates, even these liberated women fall back on the flirtation and sexual coquetry from which their new power ought to have liberated them. Further, male authority and power are far from superseded here. It's a male writer, the Hebrew Nobelist S.Y. Agnon, whose works are celebrated and used as bait. Perhaps the point is that however liberated these women may be, however collectivized their efforts, even their new system falls into the reductions of the old. Despite their sisterhood, bitter rivalries and betrayals persist, as in the library tensions, the spying, the hunting down and killing of the one escapee Hannah. Even here the women are reassigned to be the cleaners - and abused at that - when their beauty has faded and they can no longer attract suitable prey. The privileged class of Lordesses - which our Sophie needs but one more trophy to join - is an Old Boys Network in furs. The woman police chief can be as corrupt and unprincipled as the male police chief, to suit personal needs. The same compromise is required by the genre, whose conventions are respected - perhaps tongue-in-cheek - for the happy ending. Sophie turns the knife upon her own leader instead of her beloved captive. But it's he - the guy - who saves the day. He bolsters the door with an incendiary barrel, lets Sophie escape first, then knight-like carries her to safety and on his motorcycle steed off to a romantic future. Like genre literature, even a revolutionary social structure still requires the old conventions and restrictions to work. Even in contemporary Israel?

Kafkaiesque

[Kirpianuscus · 31 March 2020]

The basic problem about this film is the non existent story. Short, it seems be a film about nothing. Against good acting, against the sketches of dark humor, after its end , only the portrait of Madame Yankelova remains in memory. Sure, influences of Franz Kafka works, the reference to Amazones, the temptation of satire against totalitarian group front to true love. But each point remains a point, not becoming a precise trait. So, just something. Not bad, and the virtue is the performances but only a Kafkaiesque sketch. A fragile explanation, maybe, in some measure, it represents example of Jew humor. Maybe...

Worst film in long time

[funname · 1/10 · 20 June 2018]

Though I live in Israel, often Israeli films are not my favorite, but a few do get few and are enjoyable and well made, though often controversal.

While the acting is OK,there is absolutely nothing to recommend this film. Boring, ridiculous script and story line, with absolutely no point.

When I saw the list of actors, we felt "wow this has to be super" but what a disappointment. I was expecting a comedy, but I am not even sure how to descript the film.

It's a shame to see good Israeli actors wasting their time in such a terrible movie.

bizarre

[Kirpianuscus · 31 March 2020]

After its end, the basic feeling is the guilty. Because yours expectations were too high. Because it seems have no story. A group of women , organized in a book club, reminding Amazones, killing men. An atmosphere between Franz Kafka works and dark comedy. But nothing more than start points . Because, it seems only a huge ball of romance, thriller and crime, horror, Pasolini Salo and slices of Fellini. Nothing wrong , but it reminds , too much , a collection of non-senses. So, except the portrait of madame Yanlekova and few drops of Eyes Wide Shut, nothing more.