I was on an El Al flight to Israel a couple of summers ago when one of the inflight entertainment films caught my attention. “Les Gardiennes,” or “The Guardians,” was a WW I film. What was intriguing was that unlike most war movies, which tell a story centering around battles and soldiers, here was a story focused on those waiting for the soldiers back home; the mothers, daughters and sisters. The women.
In many if not most war movies women might be depicted as ancillary characters, but here they took center stage.
“The Guardians” depicts the burden the women at home were left with. While agricultural France is thought of as bucolic, this movie showed the demanding nature of maintaining the detailed labors and infrastructure of a viable farm.
The cinematography is gorgeous. Frame after frame is simply stunning. Sometimes the illumination of the wheat field tableaux bathed in hues of bleach gold are almost evocative of a Rembrandt painting.
A subtle and solemn quietude slowly permeates the unfolding story. You see how these women adapt to their new situation and role — the sheer responsibility of it all and their fortitude in coping. You see their developing relationships. There’s two generations. A matriarch figure, her daughter and daughter-in-law. You see alliances form. The story tells of loss and of love. At the center of it all is agriculture and golden wheat fields.
At some point as the story was unfolding, I found myself thinking of the Scroll of Ruth, which we recite on Shavuot. The wheat fields. The strong role of women in the Scroll of Ruth. The friendship of Ruth and Naomi. Ruth and Boaz.
In “The Guardians,” when the farm is struggling and understaffed, a young girl of a lower class — an outsider — is brought in to help shoulder the burden of maintaining the farm. She proves to be hard-working and devoted.
But then the story takes a dark turn. Unlike the compassion, care and pathos that permeates the relationships between the women of the Scroll of Ruth, ‘The Guardians” takes a different turn.
Granted, initially the female friendship in the Scroll of Ruth is more of a one-way affection, as displayed by Ruth’s devotion and unconditional love toward Naomi. Interestingly, the criteria for the Bechdel Test that measures representation of women in literature is a dialogue between two named female characters in conversation. Yet, as the story unfolds, Naomi, once settled in Bethlehem, begins risking loving again and begins reciprocating the friendship toward Ruth.
Ultimately, the union of Boaz and Ruth is delicately orchestrated by Naomi. Indeed, the final scene of the megillah is of the two women, Ruth and Naomi, together, as Ruth cradles her baby in her arms.
Clearly, “The Guardians” is unrelated to the story of the Scroll of Ruth.
Yet what makes the book of Ruth the gentle and harmonious story that it is, is the persona of Ruth herself, whose gentle kindness, love for Naomi and fierce commitment alters the course of a story that began darkly.
The era of the judges, the context the book of Ruth, was one of chaos that ultimately led to barbaric cruelty. The story of Ruth and Boaz is like a bubble within a tumultuous time.
“The Guardians,” with some strikingly common motifs and aesthetics, was to me almost like a depiction of what a Ruth-less Scroll of Ruth could have looked like.
It takes the act of one woman, Ruth’s unexpected, eternally soul-stirring words of attachment and loyalty that change the course of the story.
It is Ruth’s love for and devotion to Naomi that unleashes a new world in which kindness reigns, in which an ultimate act of lovingkindness alters the course of Jewish history itself.
“But Ruth said to Naomi: ‘Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back from following you. For where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people are my people, and your G-d is my G-d.”
Chag Sameach. Happy Shavuot.
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