Archive for the ‘Repnet LLC’ Category
#Arranged# Best Cheap Discount Sales Reviews
This movie is essentially a chick flick with an added theme. It involves two young female school teachers, an Orthodox Jew and a Syrian Muslim, who find that their conservative views significantly alienate them from the surrounding secular society. Because of this similarity, they form a bond, despite the obvious religious tension. The movie is a chick flick because the plot revolves around their parents trying to arrange marriages for them, a process that doesn’t always go smoothly but concludes with a happy ending for both of them.
The added theme, of course, is the religious element. The movie doesn’t really go into the issues involved in the Jew/Muslim conflict, but the implied suggestion is that there may be enough common ground to overcome differences and history. I don’t know how realistic that message is, but I like the idea of promoting tolerance. Another interesting and unexpected aspect is that the Muslim family comes across as more liberal and tolerant than the Jewish family. Again, I don’t know if this is realistic, but it’s nice to see a portrayal of Muslims which challenges the ultra-conservative stereotype.
In the end, this isn’t an overly deep or complex movie, but I like its positive and hopeful messages, and the acting is solid, so I recommend it — and not just to chicks.
Product Feature
- ARRANGED
Product Overview
Rochel is an Orthodox Jew, and Nasira a Muslim of Syrian origin. They are both young teachers at a public school in Brooklyn. They also have something else in common–they are going though the process of arranged marriages through their respective religions and traditional customs. With both family pressure on the one hand, and the rejection of traditional values by the outside world on the other, Rochel and Nasira will have to rely on each other and their friendship to pull through this difficult time of their lives, striving to be strong women in charge of their own happiness, while keeping their deep religious and cultural convictions.
Totally biased…subtly anti-Semitic – Zissy –
I had to watch this film a second and third time, just to make sure my perceptions were accurate. I found this film to be highly biased in its comparison of the two relgions/cultures, and their rituals, names, dating processes. When the Muslim man is washing his hands in preparation for prayer, this ritual is sensitively depicted. When the Muslim girl and her intended are sitting on the couch meeting her parents for the first time and deciding to go ahead with the match, they are portrayed as high-achieving and beautiful with a promising future ahead. I saw nothing in the film portraying Jewish culture in a sensitive way; quite the opposite. The women (Rochel’s mother and the shadchan, and Rochel herself) were portrayed as catty, sniping, loud-mouthed. The list goes on. Jewish environs, rituals, people, attitudes, names all were portrayed as ugly and nebby, while Muslim ones were shown as sensitive, beautiful, and rich with pride in heritage. Watch for yourself.
Heartwarming, but insipid – ultimately unmemorable. – Jennifer M. Macleod – Canada
I suspect other reviewers who have had only good things to say about this film are commenting only on its social message and not its value as a film, ie entertainment.
As a social message, it’s a decent one: Jews and Muslims can and do get along, and we have many commonalities.
I don’t feel the Jewish community is well-portrayed at all, however, nor, perhaps the Muslim one, though I’m not familiar enough with Muslim families to say so definitively. On the Jewish side, every “character” around the two women is a functional stereotype, intended to represent attitudes in their communities: the religious Jewish mother, the yeshiva-boy brother suspicious of all “goyim,” the anti-religious Jewish principal.
These “characters,” though occasionally well-acted, are essentially cardboard cut-outs standing in for real, three-dimensional human beings, whose lives and actions are rarely so simple and direct.
The two lead actors are charming and well-casted and carry the film to its ultimately predictable conclusion despite these awkwardnesses. But even their charm cannot mask what is a weird, stilted, and agenda-driven movie that falls far short of the gold standard of enjoyability. The result is a “light” issues film that ultimately fails to make its mark.
I Loved this Film! – Baazumi – New York City, NY
In all honesty, I’ve seen only two movies this year that I found worth watching. The first, Quentin Tarratino’s “Inglorious Bastards” (absolutely riveting), and the second, “Arranged”. Both films are as different from one another as night and day.
“Arranged” is a sweet, well-acted film about the relationship between two female teachers, one Jewish and one Muslim. Both women are raised in households with strong belief systems handed down to them by their families, and both women broke the cultural vice of presumed conflict and mistrust. What I enjoyed about this film is that it was never over the top, and showed family life in these families in an honest and open way. What made a mark on me also was the strong contrast in being raised within a family structure such as the Jewish and Muslim cultures, then being thrown into the unprotected, confusing contemporary world of sex, drugs and alcohol. Thought provoking.
More Detail…
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Oct 29, 2010 20:46:07
Posted in 
Tags: