Greenes
Please don't spend money on this.
Odelecol
Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.
Dynamixor
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
scottyxl
This film is about a man who finds out that his wife killed 17 people in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, Israel and finding out the why and the how.I really liked the plot of this movie because the main character is an Arab, not an Israeli. It really shows you two sides of the same coin and that the conflict between Israel and Palestine is different for everybody. It shows the pain and suffering from both sides and why they do what they think they must do. But also how somebody can think they know somebody while the truth is that they don't.IMHO this film showed me why the conflict will not end in the near future (it will probably get worse). And that is a good thing because something needs to be done about it, adding more violence to the equation will only make it worse.Climatically this film was great, the production quality was top notch. Even though I like foreign films the languages used made it hard for me to enjoy it fully. I think it is because the way they talk makes their emotions look different.I really don't understand why this film was banned in so many Arab countries, because I think this film will make people understand the situation a bit more.Anybody who is interested in the conflict or in a good plot should really watch this, 7/10
celr
This is a good film, perhaps a very good film. It held my attention and I found myself being drawn into the streets of Tel Aviv, and then into the more gritty streets of Nablus. It's beautifully photographed. We hear so much about the conflict and see grainy photos of war and tragedy but this movie gives the feeling of what it's actually like to live there. The drama, however, is a different matter. It is so obviously fiction that we feel manipulated by a story that is artificial and made up to expound a particular point of view. That this point of view is neither partisan to the Israeli nor the Palestinian side of the conflict is a good thing, but in it's evenhandedness it seems too contrived to be believable. Amin is an Arab doctor in a Tel Aviv hospital who must treat the victims of a suicide bomber. Turns out the bomber is his loving wife who he never suspected was a terrorist. It is not believable that the wife, a Christian, would blow herself up out of sympathy for the Palestinian cause, (there have never been any Christian suicide bombers as far as I know), it is not believable that the husband would not suspect that the wife was faking her love for him all that time in order to be a sleeper agent for Muslim terrorists inside Israel. The plot is contrived to bring maximum pain and confusion to the husband so he can be a sort of existential symbol of the contradictions of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. He is a straw man, made to witness his wife's betrayal and see first hand the horrific results of her insane act merely so we can philosophize about the pity of war. Obviously, the wife was incapable of seeing that what she did could only make matters worse for the Palestinians. In fact, all the oppression the Palestinians complain so much about is a result of Israel having to defend itself against suicide bombers. This point isn't really mentioned in the movie, which is a serious oversight. When he finally realizes that the perpetrator of this heinous act was his beautiful wife, Amin vows to find out why she did it. He goes to Nablus where he grew up and where he hopes to find clues to her motivations. Once he sets foot in Nablus we instantly feel we're in crazy town. His wife's picture is on the walls and people are praising her act. Because she is so obviously a fictional character meant to evoke a certain emotion from the audience, she cannot be said to have any real motivation. We are supposed to conclude that she felt such sympathy for the Palestinians that it deranged her, but the film lets us down because it doesn't give any emotional correlative to her state of mind. Amin meditates on a pile of rubble where a fictional massacre was said to have taken place, but there's no feeling of the impact that scene could have had on his wife. The movie is subtle and evocative, but basically false.
ysstog
Everything about this movie was terrible. *Everything*: the dry acting, the lifeless script, the vision-free direction, the boring cinematography... the score was particularly dreadful. The pacing was painful--it was impossible to determine at any point how far into the film you were or how much time remained. How on earth one can take a premise like this and make such a dreadfully boring movie is beyond me. I don't know whether the book is told in flashback like the film but I can't imagine it worked there, either. My advice to the filmmakers on their future work: don't try and answer questions with your film; instead, raise questions that can't be answered. If I wasn't with a friend, I would have walked out. Afterward, I found out she felt likewise. Painful viewing.
kleinsdesigns
One of the most disappointing films we've ever seen. The audience walked out puzzled and bothered.How could you take a magnificent cast of actors, give them a wonderful script, and then screw it up so badly?!I personally think the film could be used as a recruitment film for terrorists on both sides of the conflict. The world doesn't need more of that!I do not want to include a spoiler. Suffice it to say it was a wasted evening.One note: There is a scene about a "Jenin massacre", which never happened and was so blatantly false that it was immediately repudiated in most of the world press. I guess lower standards in some parts of the world can keep a lie going eternally.
