Mamadrama is a fascinating and moving documentary in which the personal experiences of filmmaker Monique Schwarz have been beautifully integrated into her examination of the representations of the Jewish mother on screen. Schwarz found that Jewish mothers in Hollywood movies in no way reflected the persona of her own mother who survived the war in Europe to settle with her husband in Melbourne. In Hollywood she talks to people like film historian Dr. Patricia Erens, to media commentator Michael Medved, to directors like Larry Peerce, Paul Mazursky and to Paul Bogart who directed Torch Song Trilogy with its highly shrill performance by Anne Bancroft...The film looks at silent films, Yiddish films and Israeli films to compare the very different attitudes to mothers in film. It`s an excursion into history, into cinema, into American and Israeli society and it`s a very personal film as we learn about Schwarz`s mother, and her own role as mother to her son. Mamadrama is a slightly misleading title for this quite serious exploration of cinema and life. It is however an excellent documentary.
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