Last week, I had a meeting with a financial advisor who works at my bank. He asked me about my hobbies and interests, and I told how much of a film buff I was. He mentioned that on Halloween he had screened THE DYBBUK, a movie I was aware of but had never seen. Ironically, Turner Classic Movies last night showed THE DYBBUK, and it was an uncut and restored version of the film at that. I made use of the opportunity to see it for the first time.
THE DYBBUK, made in Poland in 1937, is based on various Jewish folk tales (the dialogue used in the movie is Yiddish). Long ago in Eastern Europe, two friends named Sender and Nisn meet during a religious holiday. Both men have pregnant wives at home, and the two come to an agreement that if one of the women has a boy, and the other has a girl, the children will marry one another in the future. Sender goes home to find his wife has died in childbirth (she had a girl), while Nisn drowns on his way back (his wife had a boy). Sender grows rich over the years, and when his daughter (named Leah) turns 18, he plans to find her a husband, having forgotten about the agreement. Meanwhile, Nisn's son Khonnon arrives at the town Sender lives in, and becomes friendly with the man and his daughter. Sender has no idea who Khonnon really is, while the young man and Leah fall in love. Sender does not think Khonnon is good enough for Leah, and he arranges a marriage for her. Khonnon starts to study black magic in order to improve his situation, and when he finds out that Leah will be married to someone else, he calls upon Satan--but he winds up dying. Just at the moment that Leah is to be married, she is taken over by Khonnen, who has become a "dybbuk"--the spirit of a wandering soul. Sender takes his daughter to a powerful rabbi to separate the spirit of Khonnen from her, but the love between the two young people is even more powerful.
I'm certainly no expert on pre-WWII Polish cinema, but I was quite impressed by THE DYBBUK. The production design, cinematography, and editing are up to basic Hollywood standards of the time. The film certainly does not look cheap. Director Michal Waszynski goes into great detail showing the religious and social traditions of the characters involved. The film is a bit slow at times (the full version is 125 minutes), and the overall acting is very melodramatic, but this is, after all, a fable set in the past.
Waszynski uses the supernatural elements here in a restrained and subtle manner. There are a few expressionist flourishes, such as a couple of graveyard scenes. The most striking character is an unnamed mysterious traveler who suddenly appears and disappears throughout the story. This sinister-looking fellow makes dour pronouncements on whatever is happening when he does show up. The creepiest sequence in THE DYBBUK is when a group of poor villagers "dance" before Leah's wedding. The group gyrates about as if they are possessed by demons.
While watching THE DYBBUK I felt at times I was watching a semi-documentary about a unique culture. A number of folk songs are sung by the characters, and the importance of the various ceremonies that are performed throughout the story is firmly established.
THE DYBBUK is not a full-fledged horror film--it's a tragic love story filled with mystical elements. It's also even more tragic when one realizes that many of the cast & crew who worked on it were later mudered during the Holocaust.
Sounds like a very worthwhile film. I never heard of a dybbuk until I saw the Coen Brothers film: A Serious Man (2009). It's an excellent black comedy with a prologue that features a dybbuk and uses Yiddish dialogue.
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