Kike Like Me

Kastner makes his point. We get the feeling that Anti-Semitism will flow on forever, much like the hoaxes on the internet that get forwarded repeatedly. We get a sense of the hatred that is worldwide, yet it can never show a fraction of the magnitude. The scene in Paris where young boys say they will hate him if he says he is Jewish shows that kids have been taught to hate as it was expressed in the play and movie "South Pacific. We can understand how he handled Aushwitz, like it is one big cover-up, modern trains, not boxcars, antiseptic buildings, nice looking brick facades, everything so clean, orderly. i wonder if he was able to control the urge to vomit. Actually, i think his decision not to continue filming there, not to visit the gas chambers is, in a way, a metaphor for heaving one's guts out.

Quite frankly, "Kike Like Me" grated on my nerves. You know what Jamie? Your problem isn't that you're a Jew; it's that you're obnoxious and presumptuous.

I found a couple of scenes particularly irritating: 1) When you went into Pat Buchanan's home and were rude, and; 2) When you made an off-the-cuff remark about Christians at Auschwitz. While I can't defend the comment in Pat's book, you had no right to confront him in his own home, because that was just rude, period. Regarding the chip on your shoulder about Christians, maybe this is a news flash to you, but Jesus is Jewish and Christians adore him.

This may surprise you, but the reason Christians are so supportive of Israel is because we understand that Christians and Jews are siblings through Jesus. Regardless, keep on making documentaries, you are very talented.

This film had a lot of promise, and indeed there are moments where the filmmaker gets out of the way enough for it to succeed, most notably a confrontation between Jews and Arabs on a city street in France. But by and large, the inappropriate sarcasm of the filmmaker/narrator makes this film offensive to me. At Auschwitz, his lack of respect for the dead and for the import of where he is is truly mind-boggling, and comes off as anti-Semitic. Those anti-Semitic tones -- not from others, but from the filmmaker himself, whether he is Jewish or not -- echo throughout the film. I'm sure he thought he was being sarcastic or funny, but it's neither -- it's nothing more than intentionally offensive.

There is an arrogance to the way that the filmmaker looks at those around him that is very off-putting -- those that criticize Michael Moore for making his films too much about him will hate this film. Come to think of it, I suppose the entire time Kastner is really just doing a bad Moore impersonation. Really bad.

The thesis is generally muddled -- it's supposed to be about what Jewish identity means, but the film meanders and often goes off on tangents that seem unrelated to the stated goal of the film. Still, it's unfortunate that the film doesn't work given the great potential of plumbing the important issue of anti-Semitism in the world. I just wish so much didn't come from the filmmaker.

Canadian Jamie Kastner is often asked if he is Jewish and the question often annoys him as he doesn't understand why it should matter whether he is or not. Inspired by the Gregory Peck film Gentleman's Agreement (in which he pretends to be Jewish in order to explore anti-Semitism), Kastner sets out across the world to explore anti-Semantism himself. His journey takes him to Brooklyn (where he is embraced as a Jew and given his Bar Mitzvah), the US (where he meets politician Pat Buchanan), London (where anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise), Paris (where he starts a fight on the subject) and of course heads to Auschwitz.

Regardless of whether he is Jewish or not, Kastner's film exploring anti-Semitism manages to be clever and yet crass, sensitive and yet overly sarcastic, intelligent yet simplistic and accordingly the final film is a very mixed bag and I'm not entirely sure how I ended up taking it. Kastner approaches the subject with a blundering insensitivity that I found to be quite crass and at times it makes for very weak segments. The best example of this is the interview with Pat Buchanan that really goes nowhere and ends once the politician realises that Kastner has one thing on his agenda and won't stop till he gets a sound bite that backs it up ("you're looking for answers that you're not getting") but yet Kastner still tries to make his exit into some sort of persecution.

Conversely though his simple questions manage to start a fight between some random people on the street by talking about Jews. This moment exposes the problem but sadly he fails to deliver this in the same way when he goes to London and forces a Taxi driver to say what makes him think he is Jewish – the obvious answer of course being "because you're making a film on the subject and you're asking me about Jewish people, not the fact you have curly hair although that is clearly what you are looking for me to say". His sarcasm over Auschwitz is misplaced – yes it is weird that it is a tourist attraction but not as wrong and weird as Kastner suggests with his strong (but yet emotionally cold) reaction.

What he does achieve though is sort of sending out the message that Jews are getting a hard time, although maybe not that hard a time. The contributions are limited and it is only one or two of them that lets Kastner make his point well – the rest of them will win you over if you are already with him but otherwise they fall flat. A mixed film then, that doesn't seem to have the structure that it needs. Interesting and amusing stuff, but only to a point – the majority of the film didn't really do a lot for me.

I am not sure what Kastner wanted to achieve with this piece. All the points of entry seem to be skewed; whether trying to interview Pat Buchanan or getting a rise out of poor, unemployed, indigent French youth he just keeps missing the mark.

The one thing I found interesting was that the only people in the film who were concerned about him being Jewish were other jews! He seems to have missed this point entirely.

Not sure how a Jewish viewer would react to this film. You have to see it to decide.

Other than poor editing and a lack of vision, the biggest problem with this film is that Kastner comes across as genuinely unlikeable.