PodBill Just what I expected

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

AbundantDay A real disappointment after the DVD jacket gave raves. Most of the effort was insincere and the whole plot of the movie was weak to me. Why would a company feel any moral, social or legal obligation to look after a former employee? Communication with the public would have set things in order and prevented any sense of obligation and insincerity. I also felt the movie was very disconnected in terms of flowing from one locale to another. It went from one country to another with my having to figure out what country they were in. There were some tender moments but I found the movie a huge let down from beginning to end. The only positive I felt was seeing a bit more about the various cultures in the film. But where movie production was concerned, it was clear that the producer was not American because the quality was not on the level that Americans expect. I rate it as one of the third worst movies I've seen.

khcowles I absolutely loved this film. It unfolds slowly, but the rich mix of sorrow, insight, and comedy makes the journey worth traveling. These are relatable characters - quirky, funny, human, unsure of where to step next. The cinematography perfectly captures the gritty beauty of these landscapes - from Jerusalem to somewhere deep in Eastern Europe. There's a similar feel to the road trip in Little Miss Sunshine: unlikely families pulled together in the pursuit of a goal no one knows is really a wise undertaking in the first place. I review it a 9 instead of 10 because there's a slowness to the pace of the film at the beginning that belies what follows; but it's a film I will want to see again and share with friends.

filmalamosa A suicide bomb victim's body lays unclaimed. The only thing known about her is where she worked--a large mechanized bakery.Turns out the bakery had fired her and now the press coverage doesn't look good for them. She was fired by a supervisor who fell in love with her and he was worried about the personal problems this unrequited love would cause.A weasel like journalist is trying to smear the bakery and they want to make sure that doesn't happen.The owner of the bakery also wants to do the right thing and has her human resources manager accompany the body back to Romania where the dead woman had a son and family.But...where would she really have wanted to be buried??You get to see a very authentic view of urban and rural Romania the part the tourist brochures don't show.The one part I did not understand is why she is a Greek Orthodox? Must have been ethnically Jewish although if covered I missed that part.The film is different and really good. Highly recommend it.

rmanory I thought that this is a very good movie, and it can make a good candidate for the foreign language Academy Awards. The storyline is based on a novel titled 'A woman in Jerusalem' by one of the better known Israeli authors, A.B. Yehoshua. I have not read the book, but I am told that the story in the novel takes place in Siberia, whereas the film (or most of it) takes place in the Carpathian Mountains in Romania. The English title is misleading, the full title in Hebrew means 'The mission of the Human Resources Manager'. A Romanian worker of a very large industrial bakery in Jerusalem is killed in a terrorist attack and is taken to the morgue; a journalist finds out that a salary slip found on her is from the bakery and writes an article blaming her workplace of lacking humanity. Driven by this bad publicity, the bakery sends its HR manager with the mission to "do the right thing" and take care of the proper burial of Iulia Petrache in her home country. However, things are not that simple. For a burial papers need to be signed by the next of kin, and a quest starts for the next of kin, the first one being her husband. However, it turns out that her husband is actually her ex-husband, and her son is still a minor, and the only eligible next of kin is her mother who lives very far, high up in the mountains. So the HR manager decides to get there and do the right thing, bury her in her childhood village, although he had the opportunity to take a shortcut and bury here en route. The intricate story line actually develops into a story of human relationships between total strangers. The journalist travels with the HR manager, and along the way they pick up Iulia's rebel son and travel to their distant destination in the company of weird people. There is humor and drama in these relationships, and the initial mutual animosity and contempt develop into a weird friendship. There are many twists and turns in the story and they all add to a movie that keeps the audience in constant suspense about what happens next. The characters, even the minor ones, are well played, and although some of the situations are practically impossible, overall the story line gets the viewer involved not only in the tragedy of Iulia's death but also in the tragedies of each of the other characters: the HR manager and his shattered family life, the orphan teenager and his bad relationship with his father, the bakery's night shift manager, and finally, the encounter with Iulia's mother who says that Iulia was unhappy in the village. This movie is very close to being a masterpiece. The cinematography is amazing and the camera goes into small details, such as a herd of geese crossing the road on the Romanian countryside. The only happy people in the movie seem the be the Israeli consular representative and her husband, and they provide some comic relief for the otherwise tragic situations. Highly recommended.