Plus, and I can’t stress how important this is, it is over and done in around 90 minutes. Everyone is fundamentally decent even they are acting in direct opposition to each other. It’s like Bill Forsyth has rocked up and decided to do a contemporary take in Switzerland straight after wrapping Local Hero. I obviously can’t vouch for how on-the-nose its depiction of Jewish life in Zurich is and I’m not entirely sure that yoga practicing Jews in Israel are like *that* at all but it does not remotely matter. So it’s just as well that the snapshot scenes, swift plot and rotating band of exaggerated background characters works so well. If that sounds a bit “well the women are only there to move the plot along for our hero” then be reassured that every character aside from Wolkenbruch is only there to move the plot along for our hero.
That young woman is Laura, played by Noémie Schmidt, and it is an initially chaste fascination with her and what she represents, that begins young Wolkenbruch’s (Joel Basman) journey.
So, it’s a film about a young man from a devout Jewish family who starts to think that maybe, rather than be lined up via numerous shidduchs (here translated as a meeting to determine an arranged marriage rather than the marriage itself) with girls who, like him, are dutifully following a religious code, he might prefer to stare at the toches (work it out) of the rather attractive young woman with whom he has shared a moment in a lecture and who is now riding in front of him as they go for a drink. Where, shiska, for those of us on a non-Jewish persuasion means woman of a non-Jewish persuasion. It was selected as the Swiss entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards, but it was not nominated. The original title, and the title of the source novel, on which this Swiss film is based might give a bit too much away: Wolkenbruch’s Wondrous Journey Into the Arms of Shiska. The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch Film poster Directed byMichael Steiner StarringJoel Basman Nomie Schmidt Inge Maux Udo Samel Release date 29 September 2018 CountrySwitzerland LanguagesGerman Yiddish Hebrew Swiss German The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch is a 2018 Swiss comedy film directed by Michael Steiner.