Walk on Water
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Movie Reviews of Walk on Water
Movie Review: "a must see" movie
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the best movies I have seen in a long time. Character development is fantastic, as you get to know each unique personality.Movie Review: WALK ON WATER
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent film, including acting by all involved. Can keep you glued to your seat waiting for something to happen - and it does.Movie Review: Serious and introspective on multiple levels
Summary: 4 Stars
Walk on Water is the kind of film that critics will enjoy much more than the average viewer. It's a serious movie, one dealing with a whole assortment of complex issues far bigger than the characters themselves; I found it surprisingly morally ambivalent, though. It has many ways to make the viewer feel uncomfortable, and some folks don't like that feeling. And, truth be told, I don't think it went as deeply into these characters' minds as it could have, and that gives the final scene something of a false ring. Is it an excellent film? Yes. Did I enjoy it? Not so much.
Lior Ashkenazi plays Eyal, an Israeli agent specializing in quiet assassination. After returning home following a successful mission against a Hamas leader, he finds his wife dead by her own hands and a farewell note (the contents of which we hear only at the end of the film). He internalizes his grief and continues work - only his boss has now given him an assignment he cares little about. A Nazi war criminal has disappeared from his home in Argentina, and the boss thinks that the man's grandchildren may provide the key to his location. And so it is that Eyal takes on the role of an Israeli tour guide to show Axel Himmelman (Knut Berger) the sights when he arrives to visit his sister Pia (Carolina Peters) in Israel - even though Eyal really doesn't care about exacting justice on a long-ago killer with one foot already in the grave. He and Axel develop a strange kind of relationship over the course of a couple of weeks, though. Axel is the kind of guy who wonders how desperate the Palestinian suicide bombers must be to do what they do, while Eyal considers them animals. Eyal wants to know what it was like when Axel first came to understand what his countrymen had done during World War II, but neither man seems all that passionate about the subject. The two men also discuss much more than I cared to hear about homosexuality, as Axel is openly gay - even taking a Palestinian friend during his visit. I should also add that I saw far more of these men than I wanted to, as I never expected to see a scene featuring full frontal nudity in this film - but it's there. I really could have done without that.
The film did let me take a gander at several historic sites in Israel, but the latter half of the film shifts to Germany. It is there that Eyal will have to come to terms with all of the feelings churning inside him since his wife's suicide. Ultimately, he faces a moral choice that forces him to reexamine his whole life. In the end, I can't say I really know how to interpret this film, as it asks deep questions without providing answers (largely because there really are no answers). This is an almost exclusively psychological film; don't expect to see a lot of action scenes. The story is about tearing down walls, coming to terms with the past, and - albeit slightly - looking ahead to a better future. To me, though, the whole thing was just too morally ambivalent, as the film tries to take on too many big issues at one and the same time.
Movie Review: A very good and courageous movie
Summary: 4 Stars
"Walk on Water" is courageous film, confidently directed by Eytan Fox based on the screenplay written by his partner Gal Uchovsky and well acted. Its subject is a Mossad's agent whose new mission is to hunt the former Nazi criminal who lives nowadays somewhere in South America. In order to trace him, Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi) takes a job as a tourist guide for the grandson of war criminal - sociable, open, friendly young German, Axel. Axel arrives to Israel to visit his sister Pia who chose to live in Israel and work in a kibbutz and to talk her into reconciling with their parents. Eyal drives Alex in his SUV, shows him the country. They sit on the coast of Dead Sea, both smeared by celebrated therapeutic mud from neck to toes. In another scene, Alex tries to walk on the water of Kinarteth (the Sea of Galilee); three of them visit the gay- bar in Tel Aviv - Alex does not hide his sexual orientation.
The characters are interesting and compelling. The story is engaging and I feel connected to the movie the way very few movies make me. I recognize the places I've been to and I've come to love and to dream of seeing them again and again. The film starts in Istanbul, Turkey on the boat over the Bosphor and the guide talks about the bridge between Europe and Asia. I've been on the boat like that and I saw the bridge. Then the action takes place in Israel and I was happy to recognize Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, The Sea of Galilee (Kinereth), The Dead Sea where one just floats without swimming, the desert.
The plot moves from Israel to Berlin where Eyal is visiting with his new friend's family. Alex's and Pia's father celebrates his anniversary and for the first time, a helpless dying old man arrives to Berlin, the Nazi criminal, Axel's and Pia's grandfather, Eyal's target. The film explores the moral dead ends of the modern society full of hostility and old unpaid debts. Eyal remembers the history of his country and its people, he knows not from the books about Holocaust. He is a soldier and must be merciless but he has to learn something about understanding from his young German friend. Film attracts by the non-standard approach to the familiar themes of religious prejudices, homophobia, neo-fascism, newest terror and other sources of the hatred, which destroys the world. It would not surprise me to find out that the film has many detractors in Germany, Palestine, and in Israel. The final is a little too neat and belongs to the modern fairy tale genre. I see it as the director's dream that he wanted to come true - the people with different backgrounds, mentalities, history, and preferences would understand one another and would come toward one another with the open hearts and clean thoughts. Dreams, dreams...
Movie Review: Fresh, engaging story around a heavy topic
Summary: 4 Stars
We saw the Israeli film Walk on Water last night. This is a very intriguing film about baggage. Heavy emotional baggage. Not just "I'm haunted by my wife who committed suicide" kind of baggage (though there is that too), but even deeper collective cultural/national undercurrents, the burden of guilt of entire peoples and entire generations. Not just Israelis and Palestinians (though there is that too), but Israelis and Germans, younger Israelis and older Israelis, younger Germans and older Germans, and the inevitable 700-pound gorilla in that room, the Holocaust. And as if there's not enough psychic conflict to be mined in all of that fodder, layer on top of it a macho straight man confronting homosexuality. If this sounds like a recipe for a massively iconic story full of plot and characters contrived to effect the necessary symbolic gestures, it is indeed that. But the amazing thing is that the characters are genuinely and engagingly enacted, and I found myself pulled into their unusual story. The symbolism crept in disarmingly, not pedantically. The symbols were inhabited by dimensional people with real charms and flaws. Or perhaps it was just that each character was animated by multiple symbolic types at the same time, making them complex and multi-dimensional, rather than flat stereotypes. Either way, I found it fresh and engaging. (And along the way, a nice scenic Israel travelogue as well.) The title comes from an early scene with one character standing at the Sea of Galilee, and musing that he thinks it is possible to walk on the water, but you have to cleanse yourself first, completely unburden your heart. The film of course then shows us that completely unburdening one's heart is as easy as walking on water. You may not be completely unburdened of your baggage at the end of the film, but at least you'll know where some of the handles are.