Fiddler on the roof is a fairly optimistic musical set in Russia in 1905 under the control of the Tsar. This movie is about Tevye, a jewish man living in Russia with his wife and his five daughters in a small town named Anatevka, though the movie primarily concentrates on his three eldest daughters, Tzeitel, Hodel, and Chava. Anatevka is divided in two, there is the orthodox jewish part and the otrthodox christian part, which is much larger. With Tevye's intense, strong voice, he carries this film beautifully as he guides us through the life of jewish russian peasents in the early 1900's in Tsarist Russia. Much of the movie shows Tevye's strong and dedicated view towards tradition and god. The tradition and culture of Anatevka strongly prohibits the teenagers and twenty somethings in the village from choosing their own match so there are various scenes that present us with the conflict of love, marriage, and of course the generale theme, tradition. So one musical scene is between Tevye's three eldest daughters, discussing their dream matches in the village and worrying about who Yente (the town matchmaker) will pick for them. Throughout the movie, you feel a sense of family and warmth, that is until the end when the village has to break up and desert Anatevka and everyone parts different ways. Then you just feel longing for the concrete things like family, tradition, culture. This movie gets an A in accurate depiction of the time in history and an A from me.Sincerely,
Lucy
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