SYNOPSIS
More than sixty years after the Second World War, the contemporary German society is still haunted by the tragedy of the Holocaust. In this film, the director Angelika Levi reflects on her family with a focus on the relationship between herself and her Jewish mother and that of her great grandmother and her grandmother, challenging the patriarchal notion of family line. Reconstructing the history of her family with her mother¡¯s diaries, audio tapes, and 8mm home movie footages, she draws the points where family history meets the national history and where Jewish identity and traditions conflict with the German society.
The nightmare of the Holocaust is still present in the everyday life of the director¡¯s mother. The marriage between her and her husband, a protestant theologian, was considered a symbolic reconciliation between Germany the assaulter and the Jewish the victim. Her Jewish identity, however, still affects her consciousness, unconsciousness, and her body, resulting in neurosis and cancer. The director delves into the transference of a personal experience of a historical tragedy to the desire toward conservative values such as matrimony and family, which is more evident in later scenes where the director meets her mother¡¯s friends Chile who supported the military regime of Pinochet. Inspired by the trauma of her mother, My Life Part 2 explores the conflicts and reflections of the director as a post-Shoah generation Jewish daughter. (Hyuk-sang Denis Lee)
PROGRAM NOTE
More than sixty years after the Second World War, the contemporary German society is still haunted by the tragedy of the Holocaust. In this film, the director Angelika Levi reflects on her family with a focus on the relationship between herself and her Jewish mother and that of her great grandmother and her grandmother, challenging the patriarchal notion of family line. Reconstructing the history of her family with her mother¡¯s diaries, audio tapes, and 8mm home movie footages, she draws the points where family history meets the national history and where Jewish identity and traditions conflict with the German society.
The nightmare of the Holocaust is still present in the everyday life of the director¡¯s mother. The marriage between her and her husband, a protestant theologian, was considered a symbolic reconciliation between Germany the assaulter and the Jewish the victim. Her Jewish identity, however, still affects her consciousness, unconsciousness, and her body, resulting in neurosis and cancer. The director delves into the transference of a personal experience of a historical tragedy to the desire toward conservative values such as matrimony and family, which is more evident in later scenes where the director meets her mother¡¯s friends Chile who supported the military regime of Pinochet. Inspired by the trauma of her mother, My Life Part 2 explores the conflicts and reflections of the director as a post-Shoah generation Jewish daughter. (Hyuk-sang Denis Lee)