‘Lune de miel‘ (distributed on the English language market as ‘My Polish Honeymoon‘), the 2018 film made by Élise Otzenberger (her only film as a director so far) addresses two interesting and significant themes. The first is well-known and has been approached by many famous filmmakers in various registers but always including a dose of humor – it is about the Jewish identity in the modern world. The other is more delicate and less addressed – the relation between today’s Poland and the Jews originating from that country, descendants of the more than 3 million Jews, about 10% of the country’s population at the beginning of World War II. The film by the French director addresses these two themes from the perspective of a Parisian couple who decide to go on a trip to the country from which their parents and grandparents emigrated. The treatment is quite superficial, bringing nothing new to the first theme and failing to open any new path for the second.
Anna and Adam live their almost completely secular Judaism in Paris. The invitation to attend a meeting of the descendants of families from a Polish village that once had a Jewish population triggers this visit, although a second important reason is that they can be alone for a few days, afar from their one year old baby, left to the care of her parents. Their meeting with Poland is full of unconfirmed expectations and cultural asynchronies. The language barrier is always present, in Krakow the history of Jewish life and even the Holocaust seem to be marketed Disneyland-style and the borscht at the restaurant is not the one from her grandmother’s dinner memories. Anna’s home conflicts and psychological problems (the pressure of motherhood?) are in danger of escalating, but something will happen that will bring back the emotion. The ending is likely to satisfy the spectators of the Jewish film festivals.
I am convinced that this story and the issues it raises were important for the filmmakers and some of the actors. Just as hell is paved with good intentions, movie archives are full of movies made with sincerity and involvement, but which fail to cross the screen and endure over time. This is, in my opinion, also the case with ‘Lune de miel‘. The mix between marital and identity problems in the case of the couple Anna – Adam does not work well, at times it is annoying, at other times it falls into the grotesque. Anna’s character, excellently played by Judith Chemla, is the most interesting, and her identity neurosis combined with postpartum trauma could have had a much greater impact if the story was not wrapped in a layer of ethnic stereotypes which are rough when they are not rude. ‘Lune de miel‘, paradoxically, combines an intriguing concept with rudimentary dialogue and naive musical illustration. (The traditional Jewish music library is huge and it’s time for filmmakers who make such films to discover something other than ‘Hava Nagila’!) Polish relation with Jewish history also deserves a much more sensitive and in-depth approach. Hopefully this will happen in the future, maybe in movies by Polish filmmakers. ‘Lune de miel‘ manages to bring important issues to its attention, but it does it in a superficial way, missing the opportunity for a deeper impact. The film still deserves to be watched for its themes and actors, but expectations should not be too high.