EVERYTHING is ILLUMINATED or How I discovered GOGOL BORDELLO!

Do you believe in destiny? Do you believe "We will meet someone when we are supposed to meet"? Let me apply that theory to movies. I sometimes feel some movies come into our lives exactly when we are supposed to. Not before, not after. After all if some of us had not seen the right film at the right time we would not have left everything to chase our dreams in technicolor.

The reason i'm saying all this is because last night I was blown away by the film EVERYTHING IS ILLUMUNITED. Its a 2006 film. I remember seeing the trailer & decided to let it pass. I feared it might be too arty farty in a pretentious way or too smarty pants.I have seen this DVD at my local library from time to time but never picked it up. This weekend when I was at the library I finally did take it more because of have seen most other films there than the desire to watch this film.... And then I watched it.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tSUOYY4oukc

The film is based on the book with the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer. Its the story of a young Jewish-american guy's search for the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazi's in ukraine during the War. Its more like a road movie. His Ukrainian hosts are
1) Alex - A premium Ukranian guy who loves american pop-culture, esp the negros.
2) Alex's crazy anti-semetic grandfather who "thinks" he is blind. Hence the need for the third character in the form of
3)"Seeing Eye Bitch" - a demented dog named Sammy Davis Jr. Jr.



The book has been acclaimed as a work of genius. It was reccomended to me by my ukranian friend when the film came out. But no one said anything about the film. I wasn't interested in watched another film about another "Jewish American Kid searching for his roots in the Eastern Block". But I have to say its a great film. It is one of the finest adaptations i have seen in recent years. I thought the script was just perfect. They added & delected things from the book which worked perfectly. It is one of the best directorial debuts by an actor in recent years. I have not seen much of Liev Schnieder's work but I didn't expect such a great film from him. The script sure helped.

Acting was on the mark by everyone. The grandfather is hilariously deranged. Eliah Wood plays the passive & scarred american tourist perfectly. But the real star & hero of the film is Alex. He steals the movie from everybody. It helps that the film is narrated by him also. Alex is played brilliantlly by Eugene Hutz. And thats how I discovered his genius.



http://youtube.com/watch?v=3Jv3b0VKec8&feature=related

Eugene is the father of GOGOL BORDELLO, a NY Gypsy Punk Rock Band. He is also a DJ & now an actor. His personal story turned out to be more fascinating than the film itself. His family fled Ukraine during the Chernobyl meltdown. They reached US after surviving various refugee camps for seven years. He is also a groundbreaking DJ who has recidance at a Bulgarian bar MEHENATA. Liev met Hutz to discuss the music for the film & thats how he decided to cast him.
Also if you have seen Wristcutters, The Russian Rocktster character EUGENE who lives with his mom & dad is based on him.

I think the next New York PFC meet should happen at Mehenata. What say New York?