Everything is Illuminated
I am not a very big movie fan. In fact I have never been to a movie theater since I cannot bear the smell of popcorn. Instead I have a small DVD collection of my favorite movies. I guess the definition of a good movie for me is the one which you can watch numerous times and every time you discover something new. Not very often I come across such movies. I believe I found another one. It is “Everything is Illuminated” directed by Liev Schreiber. I won’t tell you what this movie is about. You have to watch it. There is a website devoted to this film which I highly recommend as well - www.WhoIsAugustine.com.
It is not for everyone. First of all it is an independent movie, not a mainstream Hollywood. And only those who speak Russian can fully understand and appreciate it. There are a lot Russian conversation in this movie which is translated with subtitles but obviously they are far off.
The actors are brilliant. The main part is played by famous Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind and many others). It is a debut for Eugene Hutz and he is incredible. He is better known as the singer, lyricist and visionary of the critically acclaimed gypsy punk rock band “Gogol Bordello“. Boris Leskin (Falcon and the Snowman, Men In Black and others) acted in over forty Russian films before immigrating to the United States where he made a carrier from a taxi cab driver to a Professor of Acting at New York University.
The film is an adaptation of the Jonathan Safran Foer novel “Everything is Illuminated“. The novel takes its title from a quote in Milan Kundera’s novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being“: “In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.” The passage refers to the philosophical idea that the greatest tragedies in life can only be experienced to their fullest if we are able to relive them.