SOLOMON & GAENOR, Paul Morrison’s stunning, old-fashioned tale of forbidden love. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.Romantic tragedies! Doomed onscreen romance! It’s been a film genre since the beginning of time, or at least since Romeo and Juliet. Was that the first tragic romance ever written? I’m not sure. Whatever the case, these movies will continue to be made until the end of time. What is it, truly, about this genre that’s so popular? It’s a question that makes me also ponder why we’re so attracted to unhappy stories, like true crime shows and podcasts. I don’t have the answers. I think that for romantic tragedies, there’s a kind of morbid curiosity that keeps us invested from beginning to end. We know this story won’t end well. We know these lovers are doomed and this story won’t finish with them kissing in the middle of Central Park while a Taylor Swift song plays. I think many of us embrace the “dark side” of movie romances because there’s a type of adrenaline to it. It’s like watching a horror movie. We see things we know aren’t pleasant, yet we’re latched to our seats, mesmerized by the artistic beauty witnessed in the dread.
There’s certainly a lot to “dread” – and I mean that as a compliment – in SOLOMON & GAENOR (1999), an epic Jewish interfaith romance that I had been meaning to see for a while. This movie was always on my radar since my first day at PJFM when I Googled “Jewish movies.” Paul Morrison’s film, which he wrote and directed, always shows up near the bottom of a search engine. Despite being nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2000 Academy Awards, it’s an underrated film that wasn’t even best reviewed by critics when it debuted in 1999. Roger Ebert, for example, gave it a minimal two out of four stars, bothered by the characters’ blatant lack of intelligence for wishing to engage in a romance that is ill-fated from the beginning. I can understand that, but that’s also the case for a lot of romantic tragedies. Suspension of disbelief is the solution for films like this. We need to forget the flaws and just lose ourselves in romance. Morrison’s drama is definitely old-fashioned to the max, a throwback to the centuries-old scenario of two youths mad for each other in an incompatible society. An unoriginal premise? Perhaps, but it makes up for its stunning leads and breathtaking cinematography.
SOLOMON & GAENOR takes the Romeo and Juliet set-up from fair Verona to cold, cloudy 1911 Wales. The film is presented in mostly Welsh and Yiddish, which surprised me because I didn’t even know that Welsh was a language. (I thought you could have a Welsh accent. I had no idea this was a separate language!) I was equally surprised to see a Jewish film set in such a traditionally Christian setting. Indeed, Welsh Jews have quite the history in the country. According to the Welsh Jewish Heritage Centre, Wales’s first Jewish community was established in 1768 in Swansea, followed by its first synagogue in 1818. As we see in SOLOMON & GAENOR¸ unfortunately, to be a Jew in town had its consequences, and many had to hide their religion for their own safety.
The Jew of this story, Solomon Levinsky (Ioan Gruffudd, the actor I mainly remember as Fifth Officer Harold Lowe in Titanic), is a young, handsome Orthodox with a tight-knit, Yiddish-speaking family in the outskirts of the South Wales Valleys. He spends his days going into town selling clothes from door to door, hiding his tzitzit under his clothes. It’s no surprise here that antisemitism is commonly accepted and practically all the townspeople attend church every Sunday. Jews are considered to be avaricious thieves because that’s what everybody has been taught. Even in Wales, countries away from and years before Hitler’s soon-to-be Nazi Germany, this hatred persists.
Solomon’s life changes when he knocks on a door and sees Gaenor (Nia Roberts), a gorgeous, soft-spoken Christian girl with an equally strict family. It’s not too soon before the two embark on a mad love affair, sneaking off to barns to make love and kiss behind homes in the daylight hours. Solomon’s evasive personality gradually bothers Gaenor. Where did this guy come from? Why won’t he propose to her? More importantly, why won’t he invite her to meet his family? Solomon is sly in his hiding of his faith, asking his lover to turn away while he removes his tzitzit and pretending to not understand Yiddish when a family of Jews asks him and Gaenor for help on the street one day.
Eventually, both Solomon and Gaenor’s families become more curious about these happenings. This is especially true for Crad (Mark Lewis Jones), Gaenor’s volatile brother who acts like he owns every room he steps into. The real tragedy of this love story, in my opinion, is the families themselves. It’s infuriating, of course, to watch parents threaten to exile their children just because they’ve fallen in love with someone of a different religion. However, the more we analyze these people, the more we see a speck of shame in their eyes. It’s as if they know they don’t need to say these things, yet they must because it’s all they know. Religion, especially during the period of SOLOMON & GAENOR, has a power like none other on the human psyche. Everyone accepts the status quo in this story while having the slightest desire to challenge it. These lovers are made for each other in the wrong era. Perhaps decades later, everyone would be more capable of change. If only…
This is a gorgeous film with shots like they’re straight out of a painting, from Solomon and Gaenor lying naked in the hay after making love to Solomon stumbling through a mountain amidst a snowstorm. Gruffudd and Roberts’ calm and composed performances further strengthen SOLOMON & GAENOR as an understated classic to not just the Jewish film canon but romantic tragedies too. I’m so pleased to have seen this movie, and even if you’re not a sucker for tragic romance, this one is deemed to pull you in.
SOLOMON & GAENOR is available to rent anywhere, including Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and YouTube.