Amichai Lau-Lavie wants to get inside the system of Judaism like a virus. A Radical Faerie, a drag queen, a rabbi, and an openly gay man, Amichai is the focus of Sandi DuBowski’s ambitious documentary “Sabbath Queen,” filmed over two decades. Amichai founded a God-optional congregation that erupted established systems of practice in his religious denomination — but the movie follows Amichai into a not-so-hairpin turn toward conservatism in recent years. “Sabbath Queen” finds filmmaker DuBowski skewing away from hagiography and instead toward an active questioning of Amichai’s life’s work. Taking on multiple decades of the man’s life means this film loses its way sometimes amid a scattered approach, but “Sabbath Queen” shrewdly asks hard questions about what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century. Especially when that question is so up for grabs right now.
If you’re not hip to the particulars of Jewish life in America,...
If you’re not hip to the particulars of Jewish life in America,...
- 6/15/2024
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
What does it mean to be a Jew? Who gets to be a Jew? These are some of the most ancient questions in Jewish doctrine and also the underlying themes of Sandi DuBowski’s enthralling 100-minute documentary Sabbath Queen, which follows the evolution of Amichai Lau-Lavie, a drag queen and radically egalitarian performer in the New York Jewish community who chose to become a denominationally conservative rabbi later in life.
DuBowski, who helmed the groundbreaking queer Jewish nonfiction classic Trembling Before G-d (2001), about gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews reconciling their opposing identities, does not fashion a hagiography of Lau-Lavie’s seemingly admirable life. If anything, he challenges him with thorny, perhaps unanswerable, questions and includes filmed conversations with Lau-Lavie’s friends and family, who push back against what they perceive as his egotism.
Ultimately, Sabbath Queen isn’t interested in the headline-grabbing macro conflicts that embroil Jews globally, but the...
DuBowski, who helmed the groundbreaking queer Jewish nonfiction classic Trembling Before G-d (2001), about gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews reconciling their opposing identities, does not fashion a hagiography of Lau-Lavie’s seemingly admirable life. If anything, he challenges him with thorny, perhaps unanswerable, questions and includes filmed conversations with Lau-Lavie’s friends and family, who push back against what they perceive as his egotism.
Ultimately, Sabbath Queen isn’t interested in the headline-grabbing macro conflicts that embroil Jews globally, but the...
- 6/10/2024
- by Robyn Bahr
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
With the question “What is a Jew?” as much of a politicized hot potato these days as it’s ever been, “Sabbath Queen” adds plenty of fuel to an already fiery debate. Like director Sandi DuBowski’s prior documentary “Trembling Before G-d” (2001), this long-aborning followup puts a spotlight on LGBTQ protagonists struggling to make a place for themselves within — or despite — the cultural and religious strictures of the Orthodox Judaism they were raised in. But principal subject Amichai Lau-Lavie has gone well beyond that to publicly promote notions of gay and interfaith marriage, among other progressive concepts considered heretical by many. His critics include members of his own family, whose rabbinical lineage can be traced back to the 11th century.
Shot over the course of 21 years, with archival materials going back much further, this is the kind of activist portrait whose sides seem so diametrically opposed, it’s hard to imagine reconciliation is even possible.
Shot over the course of 21 years, with archival materials going back much further, this is the kind of activist portrait whose sides seem so diametrically opposed, it’s hard to imagine reconciliation is even possible.
- 6/9/2024
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
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