Review: Hephzibah

It may have been eight years after the film was made, but I've cracked it for a film review in the Australian Jewish News (Melbourne and Sydney editions!). The film is an interesting one, and certainly worth seeing if you have a curiousity for what makes a great mind tick:

Tribute to a woman ahead of her time

Film review: HEPHZIBAH
Reviewed by Ari Sharp

THE great Yehudi Menuhin occupies a revered place in the Jewish imagination: he was a fantastically-talented virtuoso violinist, as strong in character as he was in creative ability.

Less well known, however, is his sister Hephzibah. Hephzibah Menuhin is the subject of Curtis Levy’s documentary of the same name.

Originally produced and released by SBS Independent in 1998, the film is being re-released now in the hope of finding a new audience. Since Hephzibah, Levy has gone on to be the cinematographer of Phillip Noyce’s Rabbit Proof Fence, and also directed the controversial documentary, The President Versus David Hicks.

It is fitting that this is an Australian documentary, given that Hephzibah spent much of her young adulthood here.

Like her brother, Hephzibah communicated with the world through music. Her instrument of choice was the piano, which she embraced at a young age. When she was just eight and Yehudi was seven, the two of them performed a concert in Paris, proudly displaying their youthful brilliance.


Read the rest of the review here.

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