Esther Kahn is a young Jewish woman living in an overcrowded, Jewish Ghetto in 19th century England. She is surrounded by looming, oppressive, dreary, featureless, worn brick architecture, narrow sidewalks and streets, blacked out windows, and hordes of black-and-brown jacketed crowds.
She lives in a tiny apartment with her large family whom operate a clothes shop within the apartment. As child, she worked, had no privacy, wore colourless clothing, shared a bed, and remained silent to avert the mockery of her mother and siblings who ridiculed her for mimicking them out of boredom.
As a young woman, her life remains the same - she has no privacy, lives in a state of mental and physical hebetude and lethargy and inertia, exudes a blank, featureless expression, is clothed in plain, unremarkable clothing, and is continuously oppressed and dwarfed by the grey, mundane, massively imposing buildings, and narrow streets, and narrow hallways, and narrow doorways, and her loud-mouthed mother and siblings, and the prosaic, banal lifestyle of her family.
Her only form of mental escape is the Yiddish theatre. Sitting in the balcony, front row, leaning over the rail, there is a vast space between her mind and the stage, a space that enables her to breathe, think, feel, and yearn.
Yet despite the freedom of thought the open stage provides for Esther, her face and body remain torpidly somnolent, impassive, dispassionate.
The plain and common looking Summer Phoenix brilliantly conveys Esther's emotionless demeanour - Summer/Esther does not convey any desire to want anything or anticipate anything.
After an unusual explosive confrontation with her mother, Esther finally decides to break free from the bleak life she is trapped in.
She is eventually cast in minor parts in a few stage plays, and meets Nathan Quellen, portrayed by quintessential British actor Ian Holm, who commences to teach Esther the technical skill of acting.
From this point forward, Esther begins a grueling dual journey of learning how to act and learning how to feel.
She begins experiencing emotions she never felt before, and she begins gaining the experience she needs to fully comprehend and wield the technical aspects of acting.
Nathan walks her across the stage through the physical and emotional steps of surprise, hesitancy, anger, disgust, self-loathing, etc; she then begins walking through those emotions in her personal life.
There are three truths, Nathan tells her - the truth of how a character reacts, the truth of how the actor would react, and the truth that a character and actor are not the same person.
These technical steps and three truths slowly deconstruct Esther's defenses and lead her to two edifying experiences in the denouement of the film which mark the beginning of her freedom of thought, movement, and emotion.
Esther Kahn is a technically challenging film to watch because of its odd and narrow camera shots, lackluster photo direction which conveys the realistic lackluster setting of the Ghetto, and Summer Phoenix's characterless and insipid and unappealing portrayal which brilliantly conveys Kahn's mental and physical hebetude and lethargy and lackluster nature.
A must-see film for people who want to learn the technical craft of acting, and for people who appreciate minimalistic films and character studies.