Kippur

Rating:
Summary: This film is so powerful that you feel it
Review: Not recommended for those who are used to fast moving action films. Kippur is slow moving and the moments of utter silence create a certain unease at the beginning, but little by little, one is totally taken into the movie. The rythm of the movie gives the viewer the time to feel the horror of war, although no war scenes appear. It pitcures normal people with normal concerns in the midst of war.

Rating:
Summary: Very important: Rent it before you buy it.
Review: The above 5 star review by Toshif is not what the movie actually is. He describes an epic "thinking" man's war movie that focuses on the feel and emotion and tradgegy of war instead of the actually physical battles. This is not really what you'll experience from watching this film. Maybe it is what the movie was aiming for, but it fell quite short and did not achieve this at all.

I love non-hollywood independent and foreign films. Especially ones that most people would deem "slow" but have powerful meaning to them. But literally, i actually started drifting off watching this one. This coming from someone who sat through the nearly 3 hour 70's surreal Russian sci-fi epic SOLARIS( all subtitled) and did not get bored.

There are many pointless pauses in the film. Sure, a pause where no one is talking after following some powerful dramatic event really helps emphasize the emotion and feel of what just occurred. But the whole movie is like this. Some guy will say "get the stretcher," or simply comment on the model and make of his car, then there will be a long pause, like theres suppose to be some great hidden meaning behind what they just said. This happens in every single conversation and gets sort of annoying quickly. It also diminishes the feel you get when theres a silence in the film after a major event, since you've been getting them for the whole movie.

Lastly, the plot in this movie really stretches what one would define as a plot. If you imagine most movies as mountains with events that bring the viewers up to a momemntous plot that climaxes at the summit of this great peak, i would say the level of this movies plot is more like a small speed bump. There are a few minor events. A few more. A couple more after that. Then one event occurs that looks like it might finally be building up to what the the climax and plot are suppose to be,, and then the movie ends.

I do not dislike this film. I am just dissapointed by it. I had high hopes before watching it,, and well they were far from being met. At least take my advice and rent it or borrow it before you decide to buy.

Rating:
Summary: Very important: Rent it before you buy it.
Review: The above 5 star review by Toshif is not what the movie actually is. He describes an epic "thinking" man's war movie that focuses on the feel and emotion and tradgegy of war instead of the actually physical battles. This is not really what you'll experience from watching this film. Maybe it is what the movie was aiming for, but it fell quite short and did not achieve this at all.

I love non-hollywood independent and foreign films. Especially ones that most people would deem "slow" but have powerful meaning to them. But literally, i actually started drifting off watching this one. This coming from someone who sat through the nearly 3 hour 70's surreal Russian sci-fi epic SOLARIS( all subtitled) and did not get bored.

There are many pointless pauses in the film. Sure, a pause where no one is talking after following some powerful dramatic event really helps emphasize the emotion and feel of what just occurred. But the whole movie is like this. Some guy will say "get the stretcher," or simply comment on the model and make of his car, then there will be a long pause, like theres suppose to be some great hidden meaning behind what they just said. This happens in every single conversation and gets sort of annoying quickly. It also diminishes the feel you get when theres a silence in the film after a major event, since you've been getting them for the whole movie.

Lastly, the plot in this movie really stretches what one would define as a plot. If you imagine most movies as mountains with events that bring the viewers up to a momemntous plot that climaxes at the summit of this great peak, i would say the level of this movies plot is more like a small speed bump. There are a few minor events. A few more. A couple more after that. Then one event occurs that looks like it might finally be building up to what the the climax and plot are suppose to be,, and then the movie ends.

I do not dislike this film. I am just dissapointed by it. I had high hopes before watching it,, and well they were far from being met. At least take my advice and rent it or borrow it before you decide to buy.

Rating:
Summary: for those who want to "see"
Review: this film will not appeal to those with short attention spans
or other cognitive disorders brought about by a steady diet of hollywood "in your face" editing.

gitai gives the viewer room to think and reflect on what is
being presented (war and more war)---instead of thrusting the material in the viewer's face or manipulating the viewer's emotions through the usual bag of tricks. in fact- some of the
characters are not actors, but play themselves as they are
in "real life".

the long takes without dialogue are reminiscent of angelopoulos, oliveira and tarkovsky- which may explain why they are not well received by the tv-addicted or cinematically uneducated.

if you enjoyed "kippur"- try gitai's other film titled "kadosh".

Rating:
Summary: When good intentions end in tragedy
Review: This is a powerful film. There are no other epithets that describe it. Gitai is able to draw us into teh conflict from the very first shots that capture the desolation of three long refugee camps along a deserted road. The excellent photography of Renato Berta is very effective and matches the director's intent. The realism of war is interpreted in all its crudeness and, at the same time, with desperate humanity. The story leaves no space to memory and focuses on human suffering, the rescue operations and the aid provided to the wounded. The article also poses the question as to what constitutes moral cinema. The answer, is suggested, is the film "Kippur". The realism of the screenplay renders with uncanny clarity the horror and the absurdity of any war. This point of view, Amos Gitai's point of view is valid well beyond the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Gitai does not blame one or the other side, but he takes the audience at the epicenter of the chaos that is a war against men - regardless of colour, nation or creed