Dyanna Body Nail Salon is offering a special mani-pedi during Spa Week
Jurlique, 477 Madison Ave., 212-752-1980
Dyanna Body Nail Salon – Spa, 40 East 21st St., 212-995-2355
www.spaweek.com
There’s still a few more days left in Spa Week, which continues through the weekend until Sunday, so if you’ve been busy with that old Monday to Friday nine to five, now’s the time to destress. The Australian skin, bath, and bodycare line Jurlique has long been a favorite for exceptional natural beauty. Jurlique really is quite different; the owners have their own Jurlique farm in Australia, where they grow thirty-five of their own special ingredients, including lavender and rose, used in their cult favorite rosewater and creams. The line also includes citrus and jasmine, sourced with scrupulous attention to quality. During Spa Week, forty-five-minute versions of their revitalizing fruit enzyme peel and purely age-defying facials are available. Those with strong sensitivity to odor beware; Jurlique’s natural products have beautiful but strong scents. For a more basic approach, try an old favorite, Dyanna Body and Nail Spa. The upscale salon is offering a sybaritic combo: a ninety-minute jelly pedicure with paraffin plus a Brazilian manicure with ten minutes of reflexology for only fifty bucks is quite a deal.
Claustrophobics, beware. Nearly all of Samuel Moaz’s microcosmic examination of the first day of the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war — the same struggle recently tackled by Ari Folman in the animated WALTZ WITH BASHIR — takes place within a dark, grungy tank. In this tiny space, audiences get to experience the fear building inside company leader Yigal (Michael Moshonov), driver Hertzel (Oshri Cohen), weapons loader Assi (Itay Tiran), and gunner Shmulik (Yoav Donat) as they are suddenly put in the middle of a secret, dangerous mission by commander Jamil (Zohar Strauss) and meet action head-on almost immediately, having to deal with the prospects of killing for the first time. The world outside the tank is seen only through the cross-hairs of Shmulik’s telescopic lens, making everyone outside a potential victim. At times the tension mounts at a breathtaking pace, although the film gets bogged down in too much melodrama as the characters get further developed. As a teenager, writer-director Moaz actually fought in the war, and it was his memories of having killed a man on that very day — June 6, 1982 — that led him to make the movie, which won the Silver Bear at the Venice Film Festival. LEBANON is quite a ride.
Mariana Chenillo’s debut feature, NORA’S WILL, is an endearingly bittersweet black comedy about family and forgiveness. As the film opens, Nora (Silvia Mariscal) is carefully organizing her home, putting cards and letters away and setting an ornate table for the first night of Passover. Then, after more than a dozen prior attempts, she successfully commits suicide. Her ex-husband, José (Fernando Luján), who lives across the street, discovers her, but with their son, Rubén (Ari Brickman), and his family in Texas, José suddenly finds himself responsible for the body. Before José can make any decisions, Rabbi Jackowitz (Max Kerlow) arrives, telling him that because of the holiday and the Sabbath, the body will have to remain in Nora’s apartment for five days before burial and that Moisés (Enrique Arreola) will continually pray over Nora until they can proceed with the funeral, which is further complicated because of how she died. None of this sits well with José, a cynical atheist who quickly orders a Christian wake and offers the rabbi a piece of ham, bacon, and sausage pizza. But when José comes upon a postcard Nora had accidentally dropped during her obsessive preparations, he thinks he might have uncovered a mystery that shakes him from his apathy. Luján is absolutely marvelous as the well-bearded José, making subtle gestures and hysterically offensive comments as if they were nothing, insulting just about everyone with a bored look in his eye, as if he’d rather be anywhere than where he is. Angelina Peláez is a hoot as Nora’s very Catholic housekeeper, Fabiana, who insists on making up Nora’s face and praying over her with rosary beads. Winner of seven Mexican Ariel Awards including Best Picture, NORA’S WILL is a splendidly told tale with tongue firmly implanted in cheek. Just like Nora does, writer-director Chenillo keeps everything in its proper place — after all, “seder” does mean “order” — never going over the top even when slapstick beckons. The film’s Mexican title, CINCO DIAS SIN NORA, translates as FIVE DAYS WITHOUT NORA, but Nora is ever-present in all the hijinks, not only through her corporeal body in the bedroom but via the will she continues to impose on everyone even after death.
