‘Unorthodox’ Is A story Of Religion And Escape

If a little memoir, some religious curiosity and a great escape are your thing, stream Netflix’s ‘Unorthodox’ (2020).

Loosely based on ‘Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots’ (2012), an autobiography by Deborah Feldman, this four-episode miniseries delves into the restrictive world of Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

The character providing the window into this enclave is 19-year-old Esther ‘Etsy’ Shapiro who initially does what Hasidic women are meant to do. She leans into her arranged marriage at the end of her teens, endeavours to have many children as quickly as possible and caters to

her young husband who shares everything with his doting mother.

While the reality of a woman’s place in a Hasidic community may rub many modern and feminist women the wrong way, ‘Unorthodox’ tempers obvious and wincing instances of oppression with intriguing insights into the Hasidic community’s enduring beliefs.

Insular and intent on prolific procreation as a response to the hatred and genocide experienced during the Holocaust, Esther’s world is one governed by strict religious rules and the men who ultimately enforce them.

Filmed in Yiddish, English and German and set in New York and Berlin, ‘Unorthodox’, for all its melodrama, stars an enigmatic Shira Haas as a young woman fleeing everything she knows to start anew in the country where millions of her people were murdered.

Embodying both the beauty, the fear and the oppressive nature of the Hasidic way of life, Haas makes an enthralling turn in an uneven series that oscillates between soapy and luminous.

Thanks to Haas, you’ll stick with ‘Unorthodox’ despite somewhat awkward scenes with her new musical friends in Berlin, and find understanding in her naïve quest to be a concert musician although she has only taken a few secret lessons in Brooklyn.

A series that depicts some of the religion’s attraction as well as its hushed and swallowed misery, ‘Unorthodox’ offers some introduction to a world not many people are familiar with beyond the modest clothing, concealed hair and Orthodox Jewish men’s pigtail-like payot.

Streaming alongside a companion documentary titled ‘Making Unorthodox’, the series joins a collection of films dealing with the subject of ultra-Orthodox Jewish people including the documentary ‘One of Us’ (2017) and ‘Shtisel’ (2013).

Worth a watch should you be curious about religion and the roles, triumphs and trade-offs of women navigating their place within and outside of it, ‘Unorthodox’ is a relatively short and educational stream for your quarantine.

‘Unorthodox’ (2020) is now streaming on Netflix.

– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram; marthamukaiwa.com

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