Movie Description:
In a Paris suburb nicknamed Little Jerusalem, a family of Sephardic Orthodox immigrants shares a low-income apartment. Beautiful, teenaged Lauradistances herself from her family`s religion and her own burgeoning desire by devoting every waking moment to intellectual discipline and secularphilosophy. Mathilde, Laura`s older sister, worries that strict observance of the Torah`s marital codes has driven her husband Ariel into the bed ofanother. When Laura falls underthe spell of Djamel, a handsome Muslim journalist, andMathilde discovers that her worst fears are true, the two verydifferent sisters find themselves in very similar crises. "I won`t be aslave to my senses," says the rigorously rational Laura. Butas her sexual awakening consumes her, Laura risks rejection from her own community and harm at the hands of anti-Semiticstreet gangs. At the same time,Mathilde struggles to reconcileher traditional responsibilities to her husband with moral law, personal modesty, and physical desire. A film ofgraceful delicacy and luminous sensualitym La Petite Jerusalem subtly depicts the personal journeys taken by two modern women raised in an ancientfaith.
