“How do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: Tradition.” So says Tevye, a milkman and family man living with his Jewish community in the town of Anatevka, in Tsarist Russia in 1905. Throughout the film, Tevye shows an admirable willingness to bend the customs of tradition for the sake of his children. But Tevye is also a man of conviction, showing us how abandoning tradition is no small matter. The film is a risky mix of song, dance, and melancholic humor—with outrage at anti-Semitic persecution—and manages to pull it all off brilliantly. But it’s ultimately about life: its constancy and change, the joys and tragedies that come along with it.
—Benjamin French