Commissar

There were a couple of things that stood out to me in this film.

First, the movie begins with a haunting lullaby being sung while soldiers are marching. I feel like these two can be related, because lullabies are sung to help one sleep. Sleep is generally, especially in poetry (or song) a euphemism for death. So wouldn't it be appropriate for this lullaby to be playing while these soldiers are marching, most likely, to their deaths?

I'm also wondering if the "delusions" Vavilova had could be seen as a sort of displacement (I think that's the word I want...). I mean, here she is pregnant, going through something she's never been through before. Perhaps as a means of "survival" she had to mentally place herself in a situation to which she was more familiar. There are soldiers in a desert, pushing things that aren't going anywhere. Then, they're all running into the water, like a release. It makes some sense to me that her unfamiliarity with birth and pregnancy would cause her to NEED to relate to something that she could more readily deal with. As far as the scythes, though, I'm not sure...maybe symbolic of the pain she was experiencing?

I liked the incorporation of Judaism...the mezuzah on the door, and especially the grandmother's Yiddish. Last semester, while studying short stories, we touched on Isaac Bashevis Singer and I got hooked. If you go to the Nobel prize website, you can actually hear his speech (the first part of which, is all Yiddish).