100 voices a journey home

Movie review: ‘100 Voices: A Journey Home’

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It’s hard to imagine a more profound expression of the healing power of music than Matthew Asner and Danny Gold’s deeply affecting “100 Voices: A Journey Home.”

The film follows cantor Nate Lam, of L.A.’s Stephen S. Wise Temple and father of the film’s co-writer and co-producer, as the 72 cantors he gathered from around the world perform at the Warsaw Opera House, the largest theater of its kind in Europe. They also appeared at the Krakow Philharmonic, participated in Poland’s annual Jewish Cultural Heritage Festival and conducted the first Jewish service at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Accompanying the cantors was composer Charles Fox, who wrote the film’s score and a special piece set to the words of Pope John Paul II. The cantors performed at the Warsaw Opera House with its 100-member chorus and 100-member orchestra, a 40-voice children’s choir and eight children from the Wise temple. No wonder Lam decided the experience should be filmed. Poland, where, before the Holocaust, Polish and Jewish cultures were interwoven, is where cantorial music was born.

“100 Voices” would be glorious simply as a concert film but is immeasurably more. The cantors were on a mission to help the revival of Jewish culture in their ancestral land, in which Jews were all but eradicated in the Holocaust. Most all the cantors the filmmakers focus on are sons of Holocaust survivors, and the film follows them to their families’ towns and cities in which the Jewish presence has been almost if not wholly eradicated.

At Auschwitz-Birkenau, one cantor found himself singing not 5 feet from where his father was forced to push fellow Jews into gas chambers. His father told him he could bear it only by considering himself already dead and would surely have perished were not the war drawing to an end; his own starving brother died during the camp’s evacuation.

Enriching the film greatly are Asner (son of actor Ed Asner) and Gold’s fine use of archival materials, including clips of the beloved Molly Picon in performance and a visit to the Ida Kaminska Theater; Kaminska was star of the Oscar-winning “The Shop on Main Street.” The filmmakers take note of the thousands of Poles killed by the Nazis and those Poles who saved thousands of Jewish lives.

The cantors were enthusiastically received, drawing sold-out, cheering audiences, and plan to perform in Germany in 2012.

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100 Voices: A Journey Home

Co-directors Danny Gold and Matthew Asner team with composer Charles Fox for this musical exploration of Jewish culture in Poland.

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Movie Review | '100 Voices'

Cantors Try to Heal Rift Through Song

By Rachel Saltz

• Sept. 21, 2010

In the old days, the best cantors — Jewish clergy who specialize in the musical interpretation of prayer — were stars. Many dressed to the nines and had entourages that followed them in the street and crowded into temple to hear them sing. That’s because “Good synagogue is good show,” as one current practitioner says, quoting his boyhood cantor, in “100 Voices: A Journey Home.”

Directed by Danny Gold and Matthew Asner, this documentary, which follows a group of cantors who travel to Poland to sing and to mend cultural fences, is most interesting and original when it sticks to the history of the cantorial tradition and to these cantors’ stories. But “100 Voices,” which combines interviews with the singers with footage of their performances in Warsaw and Krakow, wanders. It tries to cover too much ground, sketching in the history of Jewish culture in Poland and its near-complete eradication during the Holocaust.

That loss, of course, is the impetus for the cantors’ trip and what gives their mission its poignancy. Still, that history has been better told elsewhere and its poignancy is a given. This is a sentimental journey, and the filmmakers sometimes seem clumsily sentimental in how they present it.

The strength of “100 Voices” lies precisely in its voices: those of the cantors, many of whom are excellent and moving raconteurs. They provide all the history and poignancy the film needs.

A Journey Home

Opens on Wednesday in New York and Los Angeles.

Directed by Matthew Asner and Danny Gold; written by Mr. Asner, Mr. Gold, Michael Lam and Michael Mayhew; director of photography, Jeff Alred; edited by Mr. Mayhew; music by Charles Fox; produced by Mr. Asner, Mr. Gold, Michael Lam and Nathan Lam; released by Mod Three Productions. In Manhattan at the AMC Empire 25, 234 West 42nd Street, at Eighth Avenue. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. This film is not rated.

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100 Voices: A Journey Home

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100 Voices: A Journey Home Reviews

The film has been built around the live performances, which become an aural backdrop for beautifully edited archival footage and photos of pre-war Jewish life.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 11, 2010

The filmmakers over-edit potentially fascinating material, and even the concert footage is arbitrarily curtailed.

Full Review | Oct 5, 2010

While 100 Voices lacks the behind-the-camera musicality and deference to concert flow of Scorsese's The Last Waltz, it's no less potent as an auto-elegy.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 26, 2010

The strength of 100 Voices lies precisely in its voices: those of the cantors, many of whom are excellent and moving raconteurs. They provide all the history and poignancy the film needs.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 24, 2010

It's hard to imagine a more profound expression of the healing power of music than Matthew Asner and Danny Gold's deeply affecting 100 Voices: A Journey Home.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 22, 2010

Audiences will find this documentary to be an exhilarating experience, full of hope and optimism for a better future for mankind. You can't help but shed tears throughout the vicarious, euphoric thrill that washes over your heart & soul. It deserves...

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 18, 2010

100 Voices: A Journey Home (2010)

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