AFTER LIFE
‘To Dust’ an unusual journey into grief in the wake of a death
In Jewish law and tradition, family and loved ones tear their clothes as a sign of grief over one’s death in an expression called “keriah.” Basically, it’s an act that represents a “tear in the heart” and the concept that the body is the soul’s clothing, so souls don’t really die. At the beginning of “To Dust,” Hasidic cantor Shmuel loses his wife, Rivkah, to cancer and prepares to rip his coat’s lapel, but he has a hard
time despite using scissors to make a small cut.
This symbolic moment parallels what this movie is all about: Shmuel’s inability to accept that her soul is safe and his challenges with finding solace in religion.
While a side of dark humor is nice in this drama, it doesn’t always land very well. But the captivating exploration in faith and mourning works with its quirky plot and series of events.
Life around Shmuel (Géza Röhrig) in upstate New York seems to go on despite burying his wife 13 hours after her death. There is a seven-day mourning period when families stay at home and are visited by others to console them in prayer. But his grief has extended weeks beyond that time. He’s haunted by visions of his wife’s corpse, specifically he sees her big toe blossom open to the bone like a flower. Shmuel shares his terrors with a rabbi, but religious solace isn’t working. His two sons also sense his insecurities which makes him realize he needs to move on.
Overcome with fear that his wife’s soul isn’t at rest until her body decays, or “returns to dust,” he wanders outside of his enclave to understand the scientific breakdown of a corpse despite the blasphemous backlash in his community. His first stop leads him into a wake where he talks to a short-tempered coffin salesman who doesn’t understand what he’s asking. He urges him to see a scientist, so Shmuel arrives at New Hempstead Community College, where bumbling biology professor Albert (Matthew Broderick) teaches a class of inattentive students.
At first Shmuel’s presence isn’t welcome, but Albert finds himself attached to Shmuel’s determination for scientific truth. The two men couldn’t be more opposite of each other, but they grow close by doing unusual experiments to help Shmuel find closure.
Broderick and Röhrig’s chemistry is so unusual that it works well in this strong feature film directing debut for Shawn Snyder. And that goes for the whole movie. It’s so odd that viewers need to see it.