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Everything Is Illuminated (film)

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Wikipedia article


{{Infobox film

| name = Everything Is Illuminated

| image = Everything Is Illuminated film.jpg

| caption = 'Everything Is Illuminated' movie poster

| alt = Chicago Sun-Times

| director = Liev Schreiber

| producer =

| writer =

| screenplay = Liev Schreiber

| based_on =

| starring =

| music = Paul Cantelon
Sergei Shnurov

| cinematography = Matthew Libatique

| editing = Andrew Marcus
Craig McKay

| studio =

| distributor = Warner Independent Pictures

| released =

| runtime = 104 minutes

| country = United States

| language = English
Russian
Ukrainian

| budget = $7,000,000

| gross = $3,601,974"[https://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=everythingisilluminated.htm Everything Is Illuminated (2005)]". 'Box Office Mojo'. Retrieved 2016-10-03.

}}

'Everything Is Illuminated' is a 2005 American biographical comedy-drama film, written and directed by Liev Schreiber and starring Elijah Wood and Eugene Htz. It was adapted from the novel of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer, and was the debut film of Liev Schreiber both as a director and as a screenwriter.Scott, A. O. (16 September 2005). "[https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/16/movies/a-journey-inspired-by-family-becomes-one-of-forgiveness.html A Journey Inspired by Family Becomes One of Forgiveness]". 'The New York Times'. Retrieved 2016-10-03.

Plot





Jonathan Safran Foer (Elijah Wood), a young American Jew, goes on a quest to Ukraine to find the woman, Augustine, who saved his grandfather, Safran Foer, during the Holocaust in a small Ukrainian town called Trachimbrod that was wiped off the map when the Nazis liquidated Eastern European shtetls.

His guides, who drive up from Odessa to meet Jonathan as he arrives at the train station in Lviv, are a cranky, seemingly antisemitic grandfather (Boris Leskin), his wound-up dog named Sammy Davis Jr. Jr., and his enthusiastic grandson, Alex (Eugene Htz), who constantly chatters with a unique command of English and a passion for American pop culture that keeps the arduous journey lighter. These guides have been escorting wealthy Americans in search of their roots for decades. They are generally not very knowledgeable about the subject of finding Jews, and usually just attempt to scam them by taking them on long journeys. However, after hearing Jonathan's compelling story, they decide they actually want to help him.

Along the way in Volhynia, as they travel in search of the shtetl in the region around Lutsk, they have a series of misadventures, many of them humorous and based on the culture shock Jonathan experiences as an American tourist in Ukraine.

Traveling through much of rural western Ukraine, the three men eventually find Augustine's sister, Lista (Laryssa Lauret). She lives by herself in a house in the midst of a great sunflower field, isolated from technology and from news of the outside world. Lista tells them that Augustine was killed by Nazi soldiers after her father refused to spit on the Torah. And she leads them to the site where the town had been.

The next night Alex's grandfather quietly kills himself. Through flashbacks, it was revealed he was Jewish. During the massacre of the Jews of his town in the Holocaust, he was shot and thrown into a mass grave. But hours later, he regained consciousness and crawled out of the pit alive, and managed to survive the war himself by hiding his identity as a Jew. He abandoned this identity permanently, symbolically walking away from it.

Jonathan returns home to America after saying farewell to Alex, to whom he has grown close. They strike up a correspondence.

Both Jonathan and Alex sprinkle soil gathered from the site of the massacre on their respective grandfathers' graves. Alex's grandfather is given a Jewish tombstone.

Music



The score for 'Everything Is Illuminated' features eight original tracks composed by Paul Cantelon,[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THSJ4DZAVTc 'Everything is Illuminated' Soundtrack] along with songs by Russian ska punk band Leningrad, Arkady Severny, Cskolom, Tin Hat Trio, and Gogol Bordello, whose lead singer Eugene Htz plays Alex. The band members of Gogol Bordello play the band in the train station where the character Alex has come to meet his US client, Jonathan Foer. DeVotchKa's single "How It Ends" is featured in the trailer, but not in the official soundtrack.

Critical response



'American Chronicle' counted the film among the "rare films that encapsulate the emotion of discovery and drama with humor", while 'Time Out New York' called it Liev Schreiber's "unbelievably assured debut as a director".Rothkopf, Joshua (28 September 2005). "[https://www.timeout.com/us/film/everything-is-illuminated Everything Is Illuminated]" [film review]. 'Time Out New York'. Retrieved 2016-10-03. Roger Ebert praised the film, assigning it 3 and a half stars out of 4, and suggested that one might well see it a second time, as he did, "to understand the journey it takes". [https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/everything-is-illuminated-2005 Full review], dated 22 September 2005, retrieved from www.rogerebert.com, 2016-10-03.

Awards



* 2005: Lanterna Magica Prize and Biografilm Award: Venice Film Festival: Liev Schreiber

* 2005: Best Screenplay: So Paulo International Film Festival: Liev Schreiber

* 2006: Best Actor: Pacific Meridian: Boris Leskin[http://vladivostokfilmfestival.ru/ru/archive/2006/prizes/ (2006)][http://www.herzenlib.ru/main/news/detail.php?ID=15881&sphrase_id=588826 ][https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0504007/awards?ref_=nm_awd Boris Leskin. Awards]

References




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