Valérie Mréjen's 'Pork and Milk' Opens with 67 Unanswered Questions

Valérie Mréjen's 2005 book and DVD 'Pork and Milk' begins with 67 direct questions, a technique that shifts the text toward orality and interrogation. The work documents ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel who have become secular. Mréjen's approach, described as a 'detour,' uses unanswered questions to assert her own position as the interviewer, even as she remains unseen and unheard in the film. This method contrasts with her earlier work 'Eau sauvage' (2004), which featured a one-sided dialogue with her father. 'Pork and Milk' extends her 2003 video 'Dieu,' which juxtaposed stories of rupture from ultra-Orthodox families. The documentary does not explain the subjects' situations but rather finds Mréjen's own place as a filmmaker, moving away from the fixed frames and literary fragmentation of her previous videos and books toward cinema.