Re: Film, "The Governess"

[Judith R. Cohen <jcohen...>]

yes, I saw it. There are a lot of "top ten" songs, "La serena" etc., mostly 
sung by Ofra Haza, who of course is Yemenite, not from a Judeo-SPanish speaking 
background at all; and some , for the wedding scene at the beginning, sung by 
the English group "Bu
"Burning Bush" with Lucie Skeaping. I'm sure there'll be a sound track. It's a 
rather bizarre "plot" - Minnie Driver is a young woman from a wealthy 1840's 
(i.e. some of the songs probably hadn't been composed yet by then!!!!) London 
Sephardic family, the
there's a lot of cute, risquee girl talk between her & her sister, the father
dies, they are impoverished, and she answers an ad to be a governess in
Scotland where she occasionally practices a sort of minor Crypto-ism
(I think getting the candle blessings mixed up at some point), but, rather less 
crypitcally, both solves her employer's photography problems (she invents
the saline solution and he takes the credit) and even less cryptically,
has a passionate affair with him (beteer she should stick to the candles?!?!)
but does not become pregnant or anything; she gets to return to London and set
up a successful photography business, which seems a somewhat unlikely 
propositon but not a whole lot less unlikely than the rest of it.
The credits say the music was supervised by Alexander Knapp; he's a 
musicologist in London, very knowledgeable about Ashkenazi music.
I should have written down the song titles, but didn't; if it comes to a
cheap repertory theatre soon, I'll get to it....
Judith