Another weekend, another Israeli movie! Nina’s Tragedies is more about a perverted boy, Nina’s nephew, and what he goes through than Nina. In a wierd combination of Lynch and Almodovar the relationships between the characters twist and turn in part discontinuous narration from the diary of the boy and part standard exhibition. If you liked the movie Happiness then you will like the deeply sardonic relationships in this movie. It relies on several key Israeli themes: The man who goes religious, the announcement of an IDF death, but these serve the plot well and help an outsider understand more about the culture.
The gist of the movie is that the boy, Nadav, is a bit messed up from the divorce of his artist Mother and newly religious father. Both the parents are very self involved and Nadav suffers. Nina, his aunt, is widowed and Nadav is sent to take care of her. In the meantime Nadav has befriended an older man who teach him (I think?) to be a peeper. They both peep in on Nina and her Husband. Because of the discontiguousness of the plot it is hard to describe the whole interaction! The father, through the school, finds Nadav’s diary, which half the movie is narrated by, and leaves a final note of encouragement to his son dictated into the last page of the diary on the father’s death.
As far as movies go this is about an 8! Good plot, good acting, good photography, interesting twists, some good old perversion, and like magic you have a movie!
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