The Dybbuk is a 1937 Polish film, directed by Michal Waszynski.
It is based on a classic play by S. Ansky. The entire film is in Yiddish. The movie plot, in a nutshell: In a shtetl (pre-Holocaust Eastern European small town with a large Jewish population), Khonnen, a poor student, and Leah, a rich merchant's daughter, fall in love (their parents pledged that they would marry). But Leah's father is making her marry a rich man's son. Khonnen responds by studying the forbidden Kabbala and then drops dead in mystical ecstasy. At the wedding, Leah becomes possessed by Khonnen's spirit. The rest of the community wants to get him out. (It's been described as "Romeo and Juliet meets The Exorcist.")
(The names of the characters above are transliterated from Yiddish; they may appear in other forms in different sources.)
Starring Leon Liebgold, Lili Liliana, Abraham Morewski. Compare Tevya, an American production made around the same time (1939) in Yiddish and depicting shtetl life in Eastern Europe.
This film contains examples of:
- Age Cut: There's a shot of Sender counting money at the table, while his sister Freyde stands off to the side holding his wailing infant daughter Leah. Cut to Sender, with a longer beard and a bigger pile of coins, talking about how "after ten years" he's done well for himself, while 10-year-old Leah stands off to the side and asks if she can help. Cut to Sender, with a very long beard and a still larger pile of coins, talking about how "after 18 years" he's done well, while a grown Leah stands off to the side and says she has something to tell him.
- Arranged Marriage: Sender arranges for his daughter Leah to marry a stranger from a nearby village in return for a sizeable dowry. Immediately after this he finds out just who Khonnen's father was, and remembers his old promise, but it's too late.
- As You Know: Sender greets his sister Freyde with "Freyde, my dear sister."
- Black Magic: Khonnen uses the secrets of the Kabbala to call on Satan to give him Leah. But as the mysterious stranger warned, such a ritual can be fatal. Sure enough, Khonnen dies, and comes back as a dybbuk.
- Book Ends: And a reversal of the Storybook Opening. The film begins with a shot of a Torah flipping itself open, then ends with the Torah flipping closed.
- Childhood Marriage Promise: A variation—Khonnen and Leah's fathers promised their children would marry, before they were born.
- Dead Hat Shot: Nisan's hat is seen floating on the water after he's drowned.
- Death by Childbirth: Sender's wife dies giving birth to Leah.
- Demonic Possession: Chanan dies but comes back as a dybbuk and possesses Leah.
- Good Hair, Evil Hair: Since it's set in an old ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, most men have long, thick beards, sometimes white. The men tend to be stern and grim and sometimes forbidding, but not at all evil.
- Greek Chorus: The spooky mysterious stranger, who keeps popping up at crucial moments to provide exposition, like when he tells a villager that the Kabbala ritual to summon the devil can be fatal, or when he explains to Leah that a person who died young can come back as a dybbuk and possess someone they loved. This last part is pretty important as this is how Leah gets the idea to invite Khonnen's spirit to possess her.
- Long Hair Is Feminine: Leah is very feminine, sweet and innocent, and has two waist-length braids.
- Love Makes You Evil: Khonnen becomes a spirit who possesses his beloved, after calling on Satan for assistance.
- Our Angels Are Different: The mysterious visitor to the shtetl in the opening scenes, who identifies himself as "a messenger from God." He appears and disappears a couple times, before giving Sender and Nisan a warning about how one shouldn't bind future generations.
- Religion is Magic: A love-struck young man uses ancient Jewish mystic knowledge to summon the devil; the ritual kills him and turns him into a ghost. Later in the film a rabbinical trial summons the ghost of Nisn, and the head rabbi urges Nisn's ghost to cut Sender a break. Finally, there's an exorcism rite where the rabbi casts out the spirit of Khonnen from Leah.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Two young lovers kept apart by ill luck and her father's insistence on marrying her to a man who can offer a big dowry. They wind up being Together in Death.
- Storybook Opening: The film opens with a Torah flipping itself open, to the page with a passage about the spirits of people who died young coming back as ghosts.
- Things Man Was Not Meant to Know—the Kabbala was traditionally considered too dangerous to study unless you were over 40, married and with a family, for your own protection. Khonnen is an example of this.
- Together in Death: After Khonnen is cast out of Leah, she elects to join him. So she keels over dead in the temple, her soul having left her body to join Khonnen in the spirit world.
