It is a fact: There are not many good or even authentic Yiddish movies. The fake-Eastern European movies that Joseph Grünberg alias "Jo Green" had made with his troop that he more or less evacuated form Galizia, Wolhynia, Bessarabia and Podolia approximately five minutes before the first NS-pogroms started in the 30ies, are good but not authentic. However, the cast which is in this movie, from "Yidl Mitn Fidl" over "A Brifle Fun Mamele" until the "Purimshpiler" are highlights and will stay in the hearts of all those who love the meanwhile dead Stedtl and the language of Sholem Alejchem, Mendele Mojcher Sfurim and Jitzchok Lajb Perez.
After, we have, besides documentaries about Klezmer and other not very intellectual products ("A Tickle in the Heart" with the Epstein brethren) Norman Jewison's version of Alejchem's "Tewje, Der Milkener" (Anatevka; The Fiddler on the Roof). Although the movie is beloved all over the world and even decorated with an Oscar, the choice of Topol for Tewje is a bare horror. Topol is not Tewje, the movie is completely worthless, the acting constantly bad and the whole movie non-authentic. About the singing: Whoever had the luck (as the sub-signed did) to hear Michael Glücksmann as Tewje, will forget everything else quickly.
Between the miserable Jewison-Tewje and the new millennium, there is one single highlight: the almost completely unknown "Bruxelles-Transit", directed by Sami Szlingerbaum with the shining planets Helene Lapiower and Boris Lehmann in the main roles. And now, since 2003, we have Adam Vardy's "Mendy", a masterpiece of authenticity, with exactly the right balance of hidden critique and irony, illusion and satire, a real "Laughing under Tears", as Dr. Salcia Landmann had characterized the work of Sholem-Alejchem. The whole crew plays formidably - namely: adequately - whoever has a bit of an idea what happened with the grand ... grand children of the great Eastern Eruopean Yiddish speaking émigrés since World War I, recognizes that Vardy's portrait is that of a linguistic connoisseur and a competent social insider. No other people on the world has contributed more to both metaphysics of life and humor as the Yiddish speaking Jews have. That certain representatives of Israel do not like that and have done everything to suppress this movie in the past 6 years, is a shame, but fits perfectly into their Zionist-Fascist world-view.