The Old World Comes to Life: A Review of “SHTTL”
In the popular imagination, the Jewish European shtetl is often thought of as a static world, steeped in Jewish practice and diametrically opposed to any changes until its unfortunate destruction by the Nazi Holocaust. However, in “SHTTL,” the Yiddish-language film directed by Ady Walter, the shtetl is anything but static; instead, it is brimming with change and vitality.
“SHTTL” follows Mendele (Moshel Lobel, YU alum), an aspiring filmmaker who left his religious community to join the Red Army, returning home along with his best friend, Demyan (Petro Ninovskyi). He plans to run away with Yuna (Anisia Stasevich), his former love and the town Rebbe’s daughter, who is set to marry Folie (Antoine Millet), a provincial aspiring rabbi. When he returns, he finds the town occupied by the Soviet Union and wracked with controversy as new ideologies like Communism, Zionism and feminism clash with old religious folkways. Mendele’s return ignites these dynamics, and he finds himself at the center of these controversies, being tormented by memories of his dead mother, attacked for his dereliction of traditional Judaism and asked to mediate disputes between Yeshiva students and the Communists.
Despite taking place over only a single day and portraying the many quotidian concerns of the shtetl, the film possesses a sense of momentum and aliveness, largely due to the strength of the performances and the one-shot editing style, a notable technical achievement. Walter even manages to incorporate flashbacks while maintaining shot continuity, switching from black and white in the present to fully colored scenes in the past. This editing continuity does not come off as a gimmick, meant to shield narrative or character shortcomings. Instead, it assimilates the viewer to shtetl life and creates a sense of the film taking place in the present, as opposed to being confined in an almost mythic past.
Indeed, the shtetl’s aliveness is the film’s key element. The characters, while possessing different degrees of depth, do fit certain “types” we see in religious folk tales: The prodigal, the rebellious son, the disappointed father, the trapped lover, the religious fanatic, the understanding rabbi, etc. However, it is the shtetl itself that gives these characters and their conflicts depth, as while they constantly quarrel about faith, love and politics, their shared setting and history suffuse these struggles and bring them to life.
This dynamic is exemplified in perhaps my favorite scene of the film, an eerily beautiful Friday night davening where the camera whips through the shul as a heavy, serious air permeates the space. Every character, regardless of their religious status, appears to respect the shul’s holiness, even as their external and internal conflicts persist, demonstrated by the dynamically longing and enraged glances they exchange with each other. In this scene, and throughout the film, the shtetl is portrayed as a real place with real people. It exists not as a static, mythic ideal in an Isaac Bashevis Singer folktale, but as a changing environment that is subject to history and breeds both conflict and camaraderie.
“SHTTL’s” title is a reference French-Jewish author Georges Perec’s avant-garde novel “A Void,” which did not use the letter “e.” In an interview with Walter, he explained to me how the missing “e” is meant to represent the absence brought about by the Holocaust, a disquiet lurking in the novel’s background. In “SHTTL” as well, an absent force constantly lurks in the background. While the film attempts to immerse the viewer in shtetl life, the immediate concerns facing its characters are overshadowed by the Nazis’ eventual arrival, which colors every interaction on screen, creating a sense of impermanence and disquiet.
And it is the very moment following Mendele, Yuna and Demyan’s greatest triumph and expression of freedom that this hidden threat manifests itself as a terrible reality. The morning after sneaking Yuna out of the shtetl and spending a night in drunken reverie, picturing their new lives in the city, this freedom is revealed as an illusion, as the Nazis arrive. Mendele attempts to return and warn the shtetl, but it is too late and the film culminates in a haunting reunion of father and son in their final moments.
Mendele would like to be free, an individual defined by himself rather than his community. Yet when he returns home, he is reminded by his father, rabbi and eventually the Nazis that he cannot quite escape his communal identity — that he will always, in some sense, be a shtetl Jew. His desire to establish a richer inner life is hindered by external circumstances, and the historical seems to overwhelm the personal.
An easy lesson to take from Mendele’s story is that, in the end, we are all Jews, and therefore any conflicts we have with each other, any attempt to escape from the confines of our faith, are ultimately futile as the Nazis did not discriminate between apostate and believer. However, there is something deeply unsatisfying about this conclusion. How could it be that the conflict and diversity pervading the shtetl are rendered obsolete by Nazi depravity? Why should Mendele, Yuna and Demyan’s exquisite moment of freedom be undermined by awful circumstances far beyond their imagination? Can these characters retain an identity beyond the “Jew” that the Nazis labeled them?
These questions bothered me after seeing the film and seem especially pertinent considering the rise in antisemitism following Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7. Calls for Jewish unity in the face of our enemies are laudable, but they often seem to discount any sense of individuality, of the sublime freedom that can sometimes come from escape into oneself, far from any communal concerns.
Moreover, calls for Jewish unity are themselves ideological, depending on who is making the statement. What are the terms of our unity: Should we be more Zionistic? More religious? What strand of Orthodoxy? Are we tying tzitzit like the Rambam or Rashi? These debates are not, as some may think, trivial. They are the content of Jewish existence. They are what has given the Jewish community life and color for generations, as demonstrated in “SHTTL.” The film’s shtetl is not unified, and if it were, then the film and shtetl life itself would be boring and trivial, as opposed to brimming with life and intensity.
There is no one answer to the multiple dilemmas — truth vs. faith, individuality vs. community and conflict vs. unity — posed by “SHTTL” and Jewish history as a whole. But this absence of answers, like the absence of the letter “e,” should not scare us. Instead, it should lead to deep individual reflection, the type that all great art (especially great Jewish art) inspires. European shtetl life may have been tragically destroyed, but its vitality and courage in the face of changing circumstances still resonate through art and memory.
Editor’s Note: I would like to thank Menemsha Films for giving me a ticket to see “SHTTL” and director Ady Walter for agreeing to an interview. “SHTTL” is still showing at New Plaza Cinema, and Menemsha Films has a whole catalogue of films focusing on Jewish themes. You can find them here.
Photo Caption: Ukrainian Shtel Jew in 1911
Photo Credit: Picryl
