Thou Shalt Not Hate (2020)

This is another unexpected European debut (which premiered during the prestigious Venice International Critics» Week). The Italian director Mauro Mancini made a film with a simple setup, which, developing, unravels a deep understanding of the contemporary metastasizing antisemitism. A Jewish doctor — the son of a Holocaust survivor, who’s been brought up to be strong and ruthless to his enemies — one day encounters a traffic accident. He quickly understands that the victim had a heart attack while driving and calls an ambulance — but when he tears up the victim’s shirt to perform the emergency cardiac massage, he discovers that the patient whom he has to rescue has a Nazi eagle tattoo. Hesitating and tormented by the pangs of conscience, the doctor nonetheless leaves the poor man to die. Unable to calm down, he later contacts the dead man’s family, including his neo-nazi son and a daughter who becomes a potential love interest. In this drama, which borrowed its name from the Torah, the characters think more than they speak — which doesn’t make it any less expressive, and, as a result, heart-wrecking.