‘Menashe’: Director Joshua Weinstein & His Star On Hasidic Life & The Pleasures Of Quiet Drama [Interview]

There was a similarly-themed movie from Montreal named “Felix and Meira,” nominated for a Best Foreign Language Fim Oscar. Did you see it?
JW: Yeah, we use some of the same cast and crew. I actually don’t like that movie. With many of these Jewish Orthodox movies, it’s always about people trying to leave. That’s always the idea, “I don’t want to be ultra orthodox anymore.” So, I wanted to tell a story where the idea of leaving is not even a thought. That’s how these people live and so that’s how I wanted to tell the story.

That’s what I love about “Menashe.” It feels more like a slice of slice than any indictment of the society depicted. How was it casting this movie?
JW: We went out in the streets wearing Yamaka and white shirts, spoke to people. Those who would agree to have an audition would sometimes not show and, if they did show up, many would be awful. The people that did pass the casting all had their own unique quirks that we inserted into the storyline, so we let them be themselves. Every personality we cast I would change the script to fit them because we had to do it and I designed the film for those actors to be great.

That’s what it looks like when you watch the movie. The actors are basically playing themselves. How was it taking the lead role in your acting debut?
ML: For me, because I was in the Yiddish community acting world, it was easier, but he also matched the story with my own. I felt bad trying to act-out the anxieties of my own life, but, yeah, while we were shooting I didn’t really know how this or that scene could fit into an actual movie, but Joshua kept telling me, “Trust me, we will put all of this together.” The other actors also were trying to take over the movie with their own opinions of how the movie should be.

JW: When you have a few Jews in a room you will have many opinions of how certain things should be done [laughs] .

ML: He had a vision in his head of how it would all look like as a finished product, but I didn’t get it, especially the street actors, they didn’t understand why Josh kept telling them to just walk down the streets.” Aren’t we supposed to be acting?” [laughs]

JW: Back to “Felix and Meira,” why would people decide to stay in a society unless they got something out of it. The reality of it is that Hasidic people are hysterical, you don’t know how many times I’d hang out with them and they’d make me laugh and fall over.

ML: You know, not even National Geographic could make as authentic a portrayal of Hasidic life as Joshua as done here. “Felix and Meira” was not realistic, Joshua wanted to deliver the facts as they were.

JW: I just wanted to capture moments that we have never seen in cinema. A world that has never been onscreen before. What interests me when I make a movie is to show something that has never been seen before, that was what fascinated me about making the movie. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with a society where a rabbi dictates what the norms are, but I did want to show the complexities, difficulties, and challenges of that.

“Menashe” now playing in limited release now.