The Reel Schmooze: Art or propaganda? ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’

Welcome to The Reel Schmooze with ToI film reviewer Jordan Hoffman and host Amanda Borschel-Dan, where we bring you all the entertainment news and film reviews a Jew can use.

This week, we hear reviews of two films: the 2019 “An Officer and a Spy,” a film by controversial director Roman Polanski on the Dreyfus Affair, which is now playing in the United States, and the shattering picture, “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which was just named to the Academy Award’s short list for Best International Feature Film.

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But the pair opens the program by honoring director-actor Rob Reiner, who was slain over the weekend alongside his wife, Michele. We learn about his early acting work and hear about many of his groundbreaking films that have become enduring classics.

Hoffman tells us about Polanski’s cinematic childhood and early adult life — he barely survived the Holocaust and his wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by the Manson family. We then hear how Polanski skipped out on the sentencing after pleading guilty to engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, a 13-year-old girl he was photographing for Vogue, and has lived outside of the US ever since, but is still working consistently. And after all that, we learn about the merits of the film, “An Officer and a Spy.”

The final movie discussed is potentially even more controversial to several listeners, “The Voice of Hind Rajab.” The film portrays the attempts of the Ramallah-based Red Crescent to send an ambulance to save the six-year-old Hind, who is trapped in a war zone in northern Gaza in a car with her family, who are all dead. Using the authentic soundtrack from the terrified girl’s phone calls for help, the film is a carefully crafted re-enactment of the impending tragedy.

Hear which film(s) got a seal of approval on this week’s The Reel Schmooze.

The Reel Schmooze is produced by the PodWaves and can be found wherever you get your podcasts.