One reviewer complained about struggling to hear the dialogue. This is due to a huge mistake made when the film was improperly mastered for DVD; some DVD players, especially if they are trying to create phantom surround tracks with a 2-channel stereo-only system, will play this superb film incorrectly. If you can, experiment with the sound settings on your A/V amplifier, and you will likely find something that works correctly. Perhaps someday someone will properly remaster this film for Blu-Ray. It's entirely possible the 5.1 version streaming on iTunes will play correctly - I haven't checked.A reviewer from Turkey complained about everyone talking in Italian accents. This is absolutely not true, and, in fact, Margaret Sophie Stein, who plays Herman's Polish wife Yadwiga, is a native of Poland who had to work very hard to speak English for the film. As the sound supervisor on this film I know for a fact that the accents are very authentic.

Director Paul Mazursky's "Enemies, A Love Story" interplays wondrous ironies, narrative twists, humour, and wisdom. With a keen eye for historical nuance and detail (which the director describes in a voice-over commentary on one DVD edition), he explores the limits of suffering and survival—the loss that one cannot transcend against a community that does transcend immense evil.I very much like Fred Taylor's elegant cinematography as well as subtle editing by Stuart Pappé. These are important components of films. Casting seems to be perfect in a film with great depth worn (for the most part) lightly.Some of the film deeply bothered me because I suffer from chronic depression. I could not watch this film more than twice. However, Roger Simon and the director have created a splendid adaptation from the Isaac Singer masterwork.Ron Silver, always a gifted actor, never did any better work than this depiction of the paranoid, driven, and almost broken Herman Brother. Małgorzata Zajączkowska's tender Yadwiga, Herman's Polish Catholic savior and wife, centers the narrative by being more faithful to Judaism than her husband or his corrupt rabbi employer. Alan King as Rabbi Lembeck recalls for me a number of corrupt Protestant pastors I have known or for whom I worked. King plays this role with great skill.No one but Anjelica Houston could play Tamara, Herman's first wife, and the one who with the second wife redeems tradition and the future. Lena Olin's Marsha overwhelmed me. She is why I cannot watch the movie again. What a powerful portrait of despair. This is a great film. Watch it. It is a blessing and a boon.

When comedian Alan King passed away last year, I thought of his sweet performance in this should-be classic. One would not expect comedy to come from a story about Holocaust survivors, but this film takes the quirks of human behavior in the wake of tragedy and puts them on display, warts and all. I haven't read Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer's novel, but I can't imagine him not being pleased with Paul Mazursky's winning adaptation. Poor Ron Silver though, he finally gets a lead role, and almost every scene of his is stolen by one of his three outstanding female co-stars.Lena Olin has the showiest part as a fiery concentration camp survivor. Full of passion, bitterness, and paranoia all at the same time, she puts sex back into an era normally depicted as colorless and empty. I don't want to say too much about Anjelica Huston's role for fear of spoiling the intrigue each revelation about her character brings. She pulls off several humorous moments as well. But the real revelation is Margaret Sophie Stein. As Silver's wife whom he married out of gratitude, she is not as naive as she seems, and her performance anchors the film.This movie snuck in under the wire at the tail end of the 'eighties, and seemed to have gotten lost in the shuffle of high caliber end-of-the-year movies all seeking Oscar consideration. Some feel that its Best Picture nomination was stolen by Dead Poets Society. I am one of those people. But keep in mind that this was the year that Do the Right Thing was ignored in favor of more sentimental fare like Field of Dreams. Olin and Huston were nominated for their roles, but they lost to Brenda Fricker's tour de force performance as Christy Brown's mother in My Left Foot.It bothers me that this film doesn't have more votes. Rent it, people!!! (Or better yet, buy a copy. When you see it, you'll want to.) You'll love the characters, and it's a great film to watch after you've seen something like Life is Beautiful. It is an unusual tale, but one I am glad someone thought to tell.

Singer is a downer (except for the cinematically changed ending of Yentl), and this extremely well-performed and well-directed sado-masochistic tale is no exception. This film truly makes you feel its characters' abundant and excruciating pains. The Holocaust was Hell, and this film convinces me that the only thing worse than getting killed in a concentration camp, is surviving one.