Disturbing, mesmerising portrait of an idiosyncratic New York Jewish family

MIRIAM COSIC speaks to Nira Burstein, director of a film about her dysfunctional family, which will open this year’s Antenna documentary film festival in Sydney

CHARM CIRCLE IS BOTH disturbing and mesmerising. It’s depressingly sad, discomfitingly intimate, generous, despairing and witty. It documents an almost creepily idiosyncratic New York Jewish family, their dysfunction punctuated by moments of joy and togetherness.

The film, which will open this year’s Antenna Documentary Festival in Sydney on February 2, is New York filmmaker Nira Burstein’s first full-length film and her first documentary. And it is about her own family: her parents and her two sisters. The house, on the cul de sac in Queens that the film is named for, is chaotic; there’s stuff everywhere and it’s not too clean.

Money is scarce. Food is sporadic. Mental health issues are pervasive. And worldviews range from the strictly Orthodox to the sexually liberated. The footage Burstein shot is interspersed with home videos of the siblings’ childhood and their parents’ youth.

Her parents, Uri and Raya, are bohemians, both musicians, and her mother is also a trained occupational therapist. Uri, stick thin, wears a kippah and quotes the prophet Ezekiel by heart, in between swearing fiercely and displaying endless impatience. He still has long hair that he ties back.

Raya is overweight and speaks haltingly. Like her husband’s, her education is evident. She is also boundlessly patient and her smile is sweet. Nira’s older sister, Judy, has serious learning disabilities and has always needed care. Her younger sister, Adina, is preparing for a polyamorous wedding to two other women.

It is an extraordinarily honest portrayal of a household that most people in American society - and Australian - would prefer to keep hidden. And, if not for that mesmerising quality, most might prefer not to see. Burstein is clear about her purpose, however.