In Hollywood, there are long stretches between “An Unmarried Woman,” “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and the recent, slick “Something’s Gotta Give” dotting the landscape of films depicting a single woman, God forbid over 40, and her mundane life and dreams. I mean, how many coming-of-age films about young boys can one see in a lifetime?
That is both the good news and the bad news delivered in “The Postwoman,” an Israeli film that will screen in the Sonoma Jewish Film Series: “Reflections of Women — Women Directors Presents a Feminine Choice.” The 52-minute film, directed by Dina Zvi Riklis, will show Thursday, April 29, in Santa Rosa.
In this fairy-tale romance — part “Cyrano de Bergerac,” part “Glass Menagerie” — we follow Luna (Levana in Hebrew), a lonely, 40-something postwoman, who lives with her mother and yearns for love.
Falling for a dapper widower new to her route, she impulsively (and, we are led to believe, uncharacteristically) hijacks a piece of his mail, a response to a lonely hearts ad, and begins to woo him. Under false pretenses (as Steve Martin has said, “Are there any other kind?”), in this case an assumed name, she begins an exchange of poetic correspondence with the widower, (Moshe Ivgi) the not-so-obscure object of her desire.
The lead actress (Orly Silberschatz-Banai) is a slightly dumpy version of Rhea Perlman (“Cheers”) with a light-up-the-room smile. She is played sympathetically and realistically enough to have garnered the best actress award at the Jerusalem International Film Festival in 2002.
Luna has a tall, beautiful, aerobic-instructing sister, Etti, who counsels her with pearls of wisdom such as, “You won’t win if you never call,” vis-à-vis a radio quiz show that poses questions Luna is particularly adept at answering. Viewers who speak Hebrew will particularly enjoy these scenes in which there is some wonderful wordplay, as the quiz involves ferreting out a famous person’s name from punny clues.
This made-for-TV drama, which also won best script at the Jerusalem festival, relies a bit too heavily on disembodied narration from the radio station Luna is always tuned to, MINI Radio, as well as Israeli song lyrics and poetry quoted between the two would-be lovers in their correspondence. These songs provide the bulk of the plot’s exposition.
The film tries to elevate itself with poetic yearnings, quoting not once, but twice from Meir Wieseltier’s poem “When a man is born into this world, he is alone in all the world and doesn’t yet know how all the world is as lonely as him.”
Full of extreme Bergmanesque close-ups as Luna travels about, it includes a snippet of a shopkeeper here, a street violinist there … but not much to feed the fire of an armchair traveler, hoping to snatch glimpses of contemporary life in Tel Aviv. (The most interesting observation for me was that Israeli mail carriers do not seem to have to wear a uniform.)
For Israel, the security seems oddly lax — from the station where Luna opens a fake postbox to receive letters (and pilfers a date stamp from a co-worker) to her infraction of freely taking a customer’s mail. Stealing mail, last time I checked, is still considered a federal offense, not just a quirkily charming plot device.
Somewhat straitjacketed by its short length, “The Postwoman” never fully explores what could be interesting conflicts. For example, when the widower, a banker, happens into the health club managed by Etti (who does not resemble the main actress in complexion, height, coloring, etc., and seems more like conveniently cast polar opposite than a sister), there is a momentary flirtation between him and her. This could be a fascinating plot twist, but it is left completely unexplored.
The bad news is that a director must walk a fine line cinematically to show the existence of a drab and lonely life without making the film itself somewhat drab and lonely. Granted, this was shot for television, but the film itself has a somewhat claustrophobic, ugly feel to it. Even when the monotony of Luna’s life is broken up by her dreams (which are shot in Technicolor relief), they come across as garish and harsh, instead of “Wizard of Oz”-like fanciful.
Ultimately, the story of a postal worker, poetry and Cyrano-type false identities to woo the object of one’s love, evokes a more beautifully realized film with the same subject matter, “Il Postino” — which I immediately went out and rented.
“The Postwoman” (Hebrew title: “Levana Yakirati”) screens with “Caravan 841,” another 52-minute film, at 4 and 7:15 p.m. Thursday, April 29, at the Rialto Cinemas Lakeside, 551 Summerfield Road, Santa Rosa. Tickets and information: (707) 528-4222 or www.jcagency.org.