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Informative to a limited extient; not sufficient concetration on his life and family. A large chunk of the film is devoted to his characters and their cultural influence.
wow it was unexpected. A rich and interesting story of a great story teller.
Great movie and story about one of the greatest writers in our past. Was engaginging during the entire movie ... Much more than a simple bio, it connects SA to the history of the Easturn European Jews and their place in Czarist Russia at the turn of the 20th Century
Critic Reviews powered by Metacritic ™
San Francisco Chronicle
What makes the movie succeed is that Dorman doesn't only focus on the life of Aleichem (who had a tendency to build fortunes and then lose them), but a look at a society long gone and the legacy and traditions they and Aleichem left to Jews around the world today. Full Review
Andrew Schenker
Slant Magazine
Not only sets up the writer's life as representative of the transitions of early modern Jewish life, but posits his oeuvre as an ongoing chronicle of the shift from a vibrant, unified Yiddish culture to a fractured world-in-exile. Full Review
J. Hoberman
Village Voice
Additional substance comes from Dorman's ongoing use of period photos and newsreel footage. In the spirit of the Sholem Aleichem oeuvre, Laughing in the Darkness is a collective family album. Full Review
J.R. Jones
Chicago Reader
This absorbing PBS-style documentary by Joseph Dorman follows Aleichem from his early years in the Russian shtetl of Voronko through the pogroms that would drive the Jewish diaspora of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Full Review
Lou Lumenick
New York Post
Offers well-chosen selections from Aleichem's darkly humorous work. Full Review
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