Holy Rollers

I first heard of the film "Holy Rollers" about a month ago, when it debuted as a part of this season's Rooftop Film Series. I was immediately intrigued. Living in South Williamsburg, I've long since marveled at my community, where a strange co-existence of die-hard borinquens, stereotypical "hipsters", and Orthodox Jews collide. On sweltering summer sundays, it's not atypical to step out of my house and see little brown boys playing in the street under a spewing fire hydrant, 20-somethings in jean shorts and tiny tank tops whizzing by on their bikes, all while a gaggle of men dressed head to toe in black walk by on their way from Service. By far I am the most spellbound by the men in black, and the secret lives I imagine them hiding from me.

It's the same voyeuristic tendencies of mine that make waiting at the platform of JMZ train's Marcy stop in my neighborhood (specifically, around 10 in the mornings on weekdays) a fulfilling dose of anthropological self-education. Opting against my usual subway reads, I find it to be prime time to conduct my personal analyses of what it means to be a Hasidic Jewish woman. Almost always in duos, I note their identical brown hair-dos cropped to their shoulders, wearing neutral palettes of blacks, browns, and whites, faint traces of makeup and shiny lip gloss that are the only indications they are indeed from the 21st century. They are never without a brood of children, and always pushing one stroller, all while they speak to each other with hushed voices in their heavy accents that impart a large Hebrew and simultaneously Brooklyn influence. I yearn to hear everything they are saying, but they've seemed to have mastered the art of speaking in hushed voices.

This insulation, the things that I can't hear, is what keeps me amazed. Especially amidst today's ever-permeating world of information technology and mass consumption and flamboyantly displayed identities. I can barely resist a taco when I'm walking past the taco truck, how are these women and men resistant to modern American culture?!

Holy Rollers, to me, is a movie which is able to address these mysteries, the very same ones I see cloaked underneath a sea of browns and blacks. Taking a slice of the rich Jewish culture (or, is it religion? how can culture and religion be so intertwined as it is?) found in Brooklyn and like any good film, creating a twisted story of what lies beneath the surface of an otherwise modest appearance. Judging from the trailer and its synopses, Holy Rollers reveals the impurities and imperfections and corruptions that we know lie in the heart of every community, every culture, every religion. You know, the stuff we can actually relate to.



I wonder how many people this offends. And how many people it educates.