Photo: Philip Touitou
Reviewed by Emily Frost
In Partly Private: The Long Journey to a
Short Cut, we join what quickly becomes Director Danae Elon’s personal quest to convince her
husband not to circumcise their second son. In one scene, the couple lies
together, sandwiching their already circumcised one-year-old, when Danae,
pregnant again, begins to weep over their impending decision: whether to
do the same thing again.
In the course of her documentary, Elon finds the
very first circumcision knives in Israel (sharp stone shards!) and applies an anti-wrinkle
cream whose main ingredient is foreskin(!). She travels to Turkey, where circumcision is done at kindergarten-age. In a
decorated banquet hall, we see flocks of dressed-up families celebrating — with
clowns — a communal ceremony. The little boys, dressed in expensive
white bedazzled princely outfits, ride together on a toy caboose while their
parents cheer, and when their name is called rush center stage to the circumcision
chair.
These fascinating moments feel ancillary to the
director’s main mission, to portray the ways culture and family history map
onto her family’s circumcision decision. But, spending too little time fully
exploring the issue and too much time in a domestic tussle means Elon has to
rely heavily on narration, telling us what’s happening, instead of letting life
unfold. The high stakes and intense emotion of the family’s decision are
eclipsed by the over-scripted plot’s continually calling attention to itself. Nonetheless,
the film succeeds in challenging us to take another look (literally) at this
American norm.
Trailer courtesy of Filmoption International
Partly Private is
part of the Tribeca Film Festival and will be screened on Friday, May 1, 2009 at 8:30 PM at
AMC Village VII 2 in New
York City.
Find more information here.
