Footnote

(Ends tonight, May 24.) This wry, pensive comedy from Israel builds a surprisingly compelling combination of entertainment and drama out of a father-son conflict in an academic setting. Both Eliezer Shkolnik (Shlomo Bar-Aba) and his son, Uriel (Lior Ashkenazi), have devoted their lives to Talmudic studies. The son wins an assortment of academic honors while the father’s work gains no special recognition. The deeply conflicted bond between the two is put to an extraordinary test when the father is announced as the winner of a major prize meant for the son. What ensues is partly theatre of the absurd among professorial types. But deeper resonances and ambiguities emerge in the course of the action. Quasi-Freudian family dynamics are part of that, and so are the ensuing moral dilemmas, some of which may evoke the Hebrew Bible. And in the midst of all that, there are recurring ironic glimpses of the uneasy relationship these truth-seeking scholars have with the modern state of Israel. This remarkable film is the work of writer-director Joseph Cedar, an American-born Israeli, and was an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Laguage Film. Pageant Theatre. Rated PG.