''Everything Is Illuminated'' is a 2005 American

biographical A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or c ...

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film, written and directed by

Liev Schreiber Isaac Liev Schreiber (; born October 4, 1967) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and narrator. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s after appearing in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywood ...

and starring

Elijah Wood Elijah Jordan Wood (born January 28, 1981) is an American actor and producer. He is best known for his portrayal of Frodo Baggins in the ''Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy (2001–2003) and '' The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey'' (2012). Woo ...

and

Eugene Hütz Eugene Hütz (; uk, Євген Гудзь, Yevhen Hudz, ; born Yevgen Oleksandrovych Nikolayev-Symonov, ua, Євген Олександрович Ніколаєв-Симонов, on 6 September 1972) is a Ukrainian-born singer, composer, disc ...

. It was adapted from the novel of the same name by

Jonathan Safran Foer Jonathan Safran Foer (; born February 21, 1977) is an American novelist. He is known for his novels '' Everything Is Illuminated'' (2002), '' Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close'' (2005), '' Here I Am'' (2016), and for his non-fiction works ''Eati ...

, and was the debut film of

both as a director and as a screenwriter.

Plot

Jonathan Safran Foer, a young American

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

, goes on a quest to

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...

to find the woman, Augustine, who saved his grandfather, Safran Foer, during the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

in a small

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

town called Trachimbrod that was wiped off the map when the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

liquidated Eastern European

shtetl A shtetl or shtetel (; yi, שטעטל, translit=shtetl (singular); שטעטלעך, romanized: ''shtetlekh'' (plural)) is a Yiddish term for the small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish populations which existed in Eastern Europe before ...

s. His guides, who drive up from

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

to meet Jonathan as he arrives at the train station in

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in Western Ukraine, western Ukraine, and the List of cities in Ukraine, seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is o ...

, are a cranky, seemingly

antisemitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Ant ...

grandfather, his wound-up dog named Sammy Davis Jr. Jr., and his enthusiastic grandson, Alex, who constantly chatters with a unique command of English and a passion for American

pop culture Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * ''Pop'' ...

that keeps the arduous journey lighter. These guides have been escorting wealthy Americans in search of their roots for decades. They are generally not very knowledgeable about the subject of finding Jews, and usually just attempt to scam them by taking them on long journeys. However, after hearing Jonathan's compelling story, they decide they actually want to help him. Along the way in

Volhynia Volhynia (also spelled Volynia) ( ; uk, Воли́нь, Volyn' pl, Wołyń, russian: Волы́нь, Volýnʹ, ), is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between south-eastern Poland, south-western Belarus, and western Ukraine. The ...

, as they travel in search of the shtetl in the region around

Lutsk Lutsk ( uk, Луцьк, translit=Lutsk}, ; pl, Łuck ; yi, לוצק, Lutzk) is a city on the Styr River in northwestern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Volyn Oblast (province) and the administrative center of the surrounding Lu ...

, they have a series of misadventures, many of them humorous and based on the culture shock Jonathan experiences as an American tourist in Ukraine. Traveling through much of rural western Ukraine, the three men eventually find Augustine's sister, Lista. She lives by herself in a house in the midst of a great sunflower field, isolated from technology and from news of the outside world. Lista tells them that Augustine was killed by Nazi soldiers after her father refused to spit on the Torah. And she leads them to the site where the town had been. The next night Alex's grandfather quietly kills himself. Through flashbacks, it was revealed he was Jewish. During the

massacre A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...

of the Jews of his town in the

, he was shot and thrown into a mass grave. But hours later, he regained consciousness and crawled out of the pit alive, and managed to survive the war himself by hiding his identity as a Jew. He abandoned this identity permanently, symbolically walking away from it. Jonathan returns home to America after saying farewell to Alex, to whom he has grown close. They strike up a correspondence. Both Jonathan and Alex sprinkle soil gathered from the site of the massacre on their respective grandfathers' graves. Alex's grandfather is given a Jewish tombstone.

Cast

as Jonathan Safran Foer *

Boris Leskin Boris Leskin (5 January 1923 – 21 February 2020) was a Soviet and American film and theater actor. Biography Leskin was born on 5 January 1923. In 1937 his father was arrested and executed. During World War II Leskin was employed as a sappe ...

as Grandfather *

as Alex * Laryssa Lauret as Lista *

as Leaf Blower

Music

The score for ''Everything Is Illuminated'' features eight original tracks composed by

Paul Cantelon Paul Cantelon (born December 25, 1959) is an American contemporary classical music and popular music composer, a film score composer and an actor He is also a violinist, pianist, and accordionist, and a founding member of the American alternative ...

, along with songs by

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

ska punk Ska punk (also spelled ska-punk) is a fusion genre that mixes ska music and punk rock music together. (sometimes spelled skacore) is a subgenre of ska punk that mixes ska with hardcore punk. Early ska punk mixed both 2 tone and ska with hard ...

band

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

Arkady Severny Arkady Dmitriyevich Severny (né Zvyodzin ; 12 March 1939 – 12 April 1980) was a Soviet Russian folk singer. He was very popular in the Soviet Union in the 1970s, primarily because of his criminal songs. He sang more than 1,000 songs base ...

, Csókolom,

Tin Hat Trio Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

, and Gogol Bordello, whose lead singer

plays Alex. The band members of Gogol Bordello play the band in the train station where the character Alex has come to meet his US client, Jonathan Foer. DeVotchKa's single "How It Ends" is featured in the trailer, but not in the official soundtrack.

Critical response

''American Chronicle'' counted the film among the "rare films that encapsulate the emotion of discovery and drama with humor", while '' Time Out New York'' called it Liev Schreiber's "unbelievably assured debut as a director".

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

praised the film, assigning it 3 and a half stars out of 4, and suggested that one might well see it a second time, as he did, "to understand the journey it takes".

Awards

* 2005: Lanterna Magica Prize and Biografilm Award:

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival h ...

* 2005: Best Screenplay:

São Paulo International Film Festival The São Paulo International Film Festival ( pt, Mostra Internacional de Cinema de São Paulo), also known internationally as Mostra, is an annual film festival held in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. A non-profit event, the festival is organi ...

* 2006: Best Actor:

Pacific Meridian Pacific Meridian (russian: Меридианы Тихого; abbreviated as IFFV) is an International Film Festival of the Asian-Pacific region, which has been held every September since 2003 in Vladivostok, Russia. Every year it brings together fil ...

References

External links

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Everything Is Illuminated 2005 films 2005 independent films 2000s road comedy-drama films American road comedy-drama films 2005 black comedy films 2000s biographical films American black comedy films American biographical films Films based on American novels 2000s Russian-language films Ukrainian-language films Big Beach (company) films Warner Independent Pictures films Films scored by Mark Orton Films shot in the Czech Republic Films about the aftermath of the Holocaust Magic realism films Films set in Ukraine Ukraine in fiction Films scored by Paul Cantelon Jonathan Safran Foer 2005 directorial debut films 2005 comedy films 2000s English-language films 2005 multilingual films American multilingual films 2000s American films