The Matchmaker

A surefire crowd-pleaser that weaves together many facets of life in Israel in 1968 and sheds light on the country as it is today. When Haifa teenage Arik Burstein meets his friend’s rebellious cousin Tamara, who has grown up in America, he is seduced by her stories of free love and rock ’n’ roll. But the world that opens up when he gets a summer job working for a most unusual matchmaker, Yankele Bride, is bizarre beyond belief. And, since Arik’s father knew Yankele back in Romania, he trusts him and allows his son to become part of his sleazy empire around the Haifa port. The scars of Nazi Europe hang over this bizarre community and those ghosts are never far away, and yet there is some real comedy and a lot of charm in this powerful new film by Avi Nesher, one of Israel’s most renowned directors.