Review of Shem

Shem (2004)
It left me with many questions about deep matters about being a western teenager Gay and Jewish today
18 September 2004
A London teenager gone astray discovers the reality of Eastern Europe on a quest for the missing grave of his great grand father. The grave is just an excuse for him to find who he really is, his identity both sexual (his gay tendency is obsessive throughout the movie) and spiritual (what does he believe in) and for us to travel through beautiful Central and Eastern European cities, Berlin, Budapest, Prague, Belgrade etc... The character is touching. He's incredibly good looking, like a 17 year old Jude Law and completely lost. His great grand father being Jewish, he meets rabbis and Jewish people all over Eastern Europe giving an interesting insight in what is left of the Yiddish communities today, 60 years after the Shoah almost completely destroyed them. We see people fighting to keep the memory of the Shoah alive and it is true that 17 year old kids today like the hero of he movie might not be fully aware of what happened as time gos by. He is also confronted with crime and poverty in Eastern Europe all things he was protected from in his London posh family. The movie exposes a very clever point of view on the disparities between people in the new enlarged European community. The director slowly, through some very provocative scenes distills the questions in the viewers mind.
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