Hester Street (Cohen Film Collection Blu-ray)
Couples awkwardly guide each other across the floor of a dance academy under the banner, “NO YIDDISH SPOKEN HERE.” It’s New York, 1896, and many of those same Jewish couples are awkwardly guiding each other—and newly arrived Jews from Eastern Europe—into American life.
Writer-director Joan Micklin Silver’s Hester Street (1974) is a remarkable achievement for an indie filmmaker in the age before Sundance. Beautifully filmed in black and white, a fine-tuned cast fills the modestly budgeted production with meaningful conversation. The setting is NYC’s crowded Lower East Side, lively and bursting with immigrants recently disembarked at Ellis Island. Carol Kane earned an Oscar nomination for her moving performance as a wife who just landed—several years after her husband came to the U.S. (David Luhrssen)
Master (In theaters and streaming March 18)
In her feature film debut, writer-director Mariama Diallo follows the lead of Jordan Peele’s Get Out, dressing up African American exclusion as a horror genre picture and moving the uncanny action to the sort of prestigious university where presidents and senators are groomed. Electric lights flicker and ominous bass notes are sounded when things are about to get weird. The new Black student suffers from nightmares of shadowy stalkers—are they real or metaphors for the restless ghosts of racism that haunt the college and America? The ghosts grow noisier—and tangible—when someone carves LEAVE on Jasmine’s door and leaves a noose behind in her room. (David Luhrssen)
Umma (In theaters March 18)
Amanda (Sandra Oh) is a Korean immigrant living in the U.S. with her daughter (Odeya Rush), on a rural farm. Much to her daughter’s dismay, Amanda earns her living raising honeybees and has banned all modern technology from the farm. However, Amanda’s efforts to live off the grid seem to have failed when a stranger arrives bearing the ashes of Amanda’s estranged mother. Though Amanda buries the unwanted cremains, a viscous spirit is unleashed and it’s intent upon taking over Amanda’s body. With her own daughter deeply resentful of their isolated circumstances, Amanda feels terribly alone as she battles to keep her spiteful mother at bay. It’s gratifying to see Oh take a starring turn in this Sam Raimi produced film written and directed by Iris K. Shim. (Lisa Miller)
