1. Israeli TV series "Shtisel" (2013 - 2016, 2 seasons of 12 episodes). This is the first directorial work of Alon Zingman, in the two main roles starred actors Dovale Glickman (Shulem) and Michael Aloni (Akiva). The film tells about the life of ultra-Orthodox Jews living in a separate neighborhood of Jerusalem, which for me was very interesting, because I, of course, read something about them, but somehow I had a bad idea of what it looks like in nature. And it turned out that it looks very unusual, it is even difficult to imagine in our time. Modern life still sometimes touches them, they already allow themselves some attributes, but at the same time they do their best to observe traditions. In a quite modern city, there is a parallel life of this rather strange at first glance and quite a large group of people who invented these rules for themselves, making the already not very simple human life even more complicated. What they are clearly not very burdened with is work, for men almost the main occupation is the study of the Torah, which many of them do all their lives, first teach, then teach and so from generation to generation, for women the main occupation is to give birth and raise numerous children and keep a household. Many of these families actually live on child benefits, which is not well liked by the rest of the population of the country, from whose taxes these benefits are paid, but this is not mentioned in the film. The main characters of the film are the Stiesel family, most of the plot is devoted to the recently widowed father of the family Shulem and his youngest son Akiva, who is very different from the rest of the family with his even greater isolation from life and good-naturedness, since it turns out that he is attracted to drawing and painting, which is not welcome at all among the orthodox. Elder Stiesel is a rather contradictory nature, on the one hand he is concerned about marrying his son, takes care of him and his elderly mother, and other children and grandchildren, on the other hand, sometimes behaves extremely despotic, does not shun elementary lies, sometimes commits quite unseemly acts. Sometimes he even tries to find a new wife, because he likes to eat tasty food, but at heart he is still devoted to his deceased wife and nothing comes of it. And other family members do not always behave perfectly towards their loved ones, although they are guided by seemingly strict rules prescribed by religion. Such is the younger brother of Shulem Nouhem, in my opinion, so simply a crooked type, prone to meanness, 15 years living in Belgium and claiming only to the funeral of his mother, immediately making it clear that he has a quite mercantile interest. Brothers often conflict with each other. It is not easy for Akiva to maneuver between the demands of religion, from which he is sometimes distracted, which horrifies him, and his feelings, between the ultimatums given to him by his relatives and the craving for art, which is condoned by the owner of the local art gallery, who promotes him. By the end of the second season, we were kind of given a hint of a happy ending, but we can’t be sure how things will turn out in the future, whether his father, who has managed to distinguish himself, will do something again. I liked the film, although I can not say that the script was very well worked out and perfect, some storylines are not worked out and hang at times, as they say, were not going to show, should not have started, but nevertheless, to watch interesting, turned out a very high-quality drama, some characters of which sympathize. I liked the actors, too. If anyone is interested in the topic, I recommend you to look at it.
2. Watched the third season of the Israeli series “Shtisel”, 2021, they write that it is completed. I’ve written a lot about the first two seasons so I won’t repeat myself. Akiva still married his cousin Libi, they had a daughter, but two months after her birth, Libi died, Akiva is very worried, before her death he painted a number of her portraits, which were exhibited in the local art gallery. I must say that he does not have good luck at all, although it sometimes manifests itself in some things, and the rest of the characters also have problems, and who of the people in life do not have them? So we see how their lives go and what they do when they have all kinds of difficulties. Akiva, because of his frivolity and addiction to alcohol, almost lost his daughter, whom he loves very much and which was taken from him, doubting that he was properly performing his fatherly duties, but then he unexpectedly helped a woman, whom he met thanks to the portraits of his wife, she bought three of her portraits, which, in turn, helped her recover from another attack of mental illness. In the end, Akiva seems to have decided, despite the protests of his father, and other cases seem to have begun to develop more or less. It is interesting to see how modern life enters this orthodox environment, how women show more and more independence, openly ignoring the need to observe the principle of “man is the master of the house and he decides everything”, because sometimes it is women who bear the financial burden while her husband continues to study the Torah. Anyway, I liked the show.