Suicide and religion strain a family’s bonds in “Nora’s Will”
Tevye the dairyman said that because of tradition, Jews know who they are and what God wants them to do. José Kurtz, a burly and bearded theatrical cross between “Fiddler on the Roof”’s hard-luck Tevye and philosopher Freidrich Nietzsche, doesn’t need God to tell him what to do. He’s got his ex-wife, Nora, for that—even after she’s dead.
In “Nora’s Will,” or, as it’s more directly translated from the Spanish, Five Days without Nora, the ever-controlling title character plans everything for her loved ones to do for after her fifteenth suicide attempt becomes a success. The film is a 2008 first effort by Mexican writer-director Mariana Chenillo that opened recently in New York and California. Before she swallows a few bottles of pills, Nora writes specific instructions for preparing the Passover seder, arranges for a cat sitter, orders a delivery of frozen kosher meat and labels everything in the refrigerator. Nora plans for every detail: As her last act, she puts on a pot of coffee for those who will discover her body.
She kills herself the day before the first night of Passover so that her survivors will have to be in each other’s company until the funeral—which, according to halakha, can’t be held until after two days of yom tov and the adjacent Shabbat.
But José, played expertly by Fernando Luján, has other plans. He and Nora have been divorced for 20 years and he’s had enough of her manipulation. José works to sabotage Nora’s plans, mixing around the labels in the refrigerator, hiding her instruction books and making arrangements with a Catholic funeral home—since Jewish cemeteries in Mexico City won’t bury her until Sunday. Employees from the “Cemetery of Jesus” fill Nora’s apartment with cross-shaped wreaths and a cross-shaped casket, filing past Moisés—the convert-turned-religious guard sent by the rabbi to keep watch over Nora’s body.
José reveals his inner Nietzsche in conversations with Moisés, challenging him on religion in matters of life and death.
“God? I don’t understand,” José says. “Guys like you use the concept of God to justify things. Excuse me, but God doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“God has everything to do with everything, José,” Moisés counters.
“God doesn’t exist,” assets José, before chomping on a slice of pizza topped with ham, bacon and sausage.
Those who pay close attention are sure to notice a myriad of inconsistencies with traditional Jewish practice—such as Nora planning the seder for the fifth, not the first or second, night of Passover and the Orthodox rabbi calling Moisés on his cell phone on Shabbat. But if viewers focus on what some might call mistakes, they’ll miss out on the film—which revolves around the Kurtzes and their extended family, friends and Jewish community.
Aside from José and Moisés, the characters are thinly drawn, but they often add doses of humor to a script that tries to tackle serious issues. For example, there’s Leah, the nearly blind aunt with sexually-laced memories of Rubén—the only child of José and Nora. There’s José’s precocious grandchildren who like playing in the cross-shaped coffin. There’s Jackowitz, the crusty rabbi who finds José so offensive that he attempts to prevent Nora from being buried in any Jewish cemetery in Mexico City. And then there’s Fabiana, the Christian housekeeper who has a love affair of sorts with Moisés while she prepares chicken for the seder.
Fabiana wants to help Nora as well. Although she knows that Nora wasn’t loyal to Jesus in life, she would like to help her former employer after death, so she places a cross around the neck of Nora’s dead body. But Fabiana’s not the only one trying to save Nora’s soul: Moisés prays for her; Leah tries to ensure that José doesn’t find out about Nora’s secrets; and Rabbi Jackowitz tries to overlook Nora’s cause of death until José offers him a slice of cold pizza topped with ham, bacon and sausage.
In Nora’s Will, Nora’s corpse becomes a battleground for other characters to assert their religious traditions. But don’t get distracted by that red herring. Instead, pay attention to changes in José’s behavior, because the real story is about his journey as he comes to accept Nora’s suicidal wishes — and her will.
David Krantz, an associate editor at PresenTense magazine, is studying toward master’s degrees in nonprofit management and Judaic studies at New York University.
