This Iranian re-imagining of Jewish monster the golem is a dark folk Promethean tale for fans of The Witch.
Stumbling across this late at night on Amazon Prime, I was promised old mystical folklore, Frankenstein meets The Witch (according to L.A. Times), dark evil and “an unnerving, original terror experience”. There’s not much that unnerves or terrifies me, but despite not preventing me from sleeping soundly, I’d happily agree with Prime’s brief blurb and its 4-star rating.
Set in Lithuania in the 17th Century, bubonic plague – the Black Death – is rife, as it seemingly remained to be since the first wave in the late Medieval period, but it’s not the plague that is a threat to our heroine, Hanna, it is of course, other humans.
We first meet Hanna (Hang Furstenberg) inside the home of the resident wise woman, who provides our protagonist with a potion. After hiding underneath the synagogue, a place unwelcome to women, she witnesses her husband, Benjamin, and the rabbi (his father), discussing her. The rabbi is keen for Benjamin to leave Hanna for someone who can “fulfil her wifely duties” – which soon becomes apparent is providing him with an heir, something Hanna is less than thrilled to do after the death of their son seven years ago. After Benjamin smuggles Hanna a book from the Torah, the two return home where Hanna applies the ointment provided by the wise woman secretly and Benjamin and her copulate. After Benjamin finishes, Hanna immediately gets up to study the text, much to Benjamin’s dismay. It becomes apparent that this isn’t just any religious book – this is a book of Kabbalah.
Kabbalah (or Qabalah) translates quite literally from Hebrew as “tradition” and is an occult tradition or school of thought within the confounds of Juddaism, which may be easier explained and understood as esoteric Jewish mysticism.
Dating back to the Middle Ages, the origin of Kabbalah lies within the Zohar – a series of writings and commentaries on the Torah, written in medieval Aramaic and medieval Hebrew, intended to function as a spiritual guide to achieve a closer understanding and connection to God. Kabbalists are concerned not only with the scripture of these mystical texts but with the very essence of God and the universe. While I won’t divulge too far into it, it is a fascinating practice and delves deep into the realms of philosophy and metaphysics, and has had an incredibly important influence on Western esotericism and Hermetic organisations such as The Order of the Golden Dawn.
It is within these texts that Hanna has supposedly learnt about the Golem – a creature of Jewish folklore created from mud, just like Adam. However, Golems are not human and cannot speak. It was again during the Middle Ages that this legend was born, supposedly out of a passage within the Book of Creation. Golems could be created by means of a ritual using letters from the Hebrew alphabet and placing it either upon the forehead of the clay creature, or on a piece of paper within its mouth.
The next day, Hanna’s younger sister’s marriage is gatecrashed by a group of Christians from a nearby town that has been consumed by plague. The leader of the group demands that the local healing woman – the very same woman who has been helping supply Hanna with contraceptive ointment – must cure his daughter from the plague, or the village will perish. Hanna’s sister is then assaulted by one of the Christians, causing a miscarriage and her death. This spurs Hanna on to take matters into her own hands and rid the village of these men the only way she knows how – by summoning a Golem.
The look and feel of the film, seeped in historical realness, wouldn’t have allowed for a creature that looked somewhat like a DC villain; so the filmmakers chose to have the Golem appear as a mud-drenched naked child, a child who appears to look identical to Hanna’s late son. This choice is a brilliant one and highlights Hanna’s connection to the Golem, as its creator, and allows her to ultimately deal with her own grief and reconcile with her husband.
Despite having a predominantly male production team, the film is incredibly sensitive to Hanna’s plight and avoids many stereotypical tropes of a grieving mother that many other horror films rely upon, while also effectively navigating the heavily patriarchal society in which it’s set.
Hanna doesn’t grief outwardly, in fact her husband comments that he has never seen her shed a tear. The way in which she stands her ground and retains power is never outward, as this would have been incredibly unrealistic for the time with women holding so little power within her society. Hanna is a clever rebel.
Despite being a woman, and according to her culture therefore nothing but “a giver of life”, after the death of her son she isn’t ready for a new child, so she silently applies her tonic to prevent herself becoming pregnant. This makes her an outsider in her society, but she is resilient and refuses to give in to the pressure of having a new child.
She isn’t allowed in the synagogue, so she sneaks beneath it to hear the teachings and persuades her husband to aid her in her learning. When she becomes somewhat ‘irrational’ after the death of her sister, her outburst only encourages the townsmen to ignore her ideas. This encourages her to silently take matters into her own hands. It isn’t until she has invoked The Golem itself that she has any real respect of reverence from her community – and this is only through fear, as The Golem is within her control.
Hanna also isn’t concerned with causing havoc or punishing those who are not a direct, violent threat to her community. She never gets too power hungry, enabling her to remain both a sympathetic and admirable protagonist. She is incredibly selective of her battles and is used to having command of her emotions and governing her own needs as a female in her society. For example, when her marriage is threatened by a woman interested in her husband, who has complete disregard for Hanna, she is devastated when her Golem punishes her. While she is angry and upset about the woman pursuing her husband, she is above targeting the other woman and does not wish to see her die. This means Hanna is, although in many respects a traumatised and emotional wreck, not a cliché madwoman. She keeps her wits about her, and while her emotions may drive her and cause her to find it hard to say goodbye to the monster she created, she is able to see the bigger picture with a little help from her husband.
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