Foxtrot

It was back to Israel for Foxtrot, but this time for was a Jewish Israeli film, Like Wajib it was a family drama, but unlike Wajib it features Jewish Israelis and we're talking a funeral rather than a wedding.

Foxtrot centres on a middle-aged Israeli (Michael) who lives with his wife  (Dafna) and two young adult children (Jonathon and Alma) in a high-rise apartment in Tel Aviv. Jonathon is currently serving in the IDF and is stationed in the north of Israel. The film opens with a knock on the apartment door and it's two soldiers, announcing that Jonathon has been killed. They're coy about the details, and suggest that viewing the body is unnecessary and undesirable. They act with impressive efficiency - you get a sense of the IDF being an unstoppable well-oiled machine

So we view the family's different reactions to the news, get to meet a few other relatives and get to know people a bit better. Michael's mother is a holocaust survivor who's losing her memory, Michael served in the IDF himself.

Then the first plot twist - the soldiers are back, announcing they got things wrong, and although a Jonathon Feldman has died, it isn't their son. So now there are different kinds of angst to go through. Initially Michael and Alma are fighting, later they find some  mutual consolation in their joint confusion and anger.

Then it's off to the north of Israel and seeing Jonathon's  day-to-day existence. He and three fellow solider live in a container and monitor an isolated checkpoint. There's very little going on but there's some drama when they're inspecting a carful of young Arabs and they mistake a beer can for a grenade and open fire, killing all the occupants. In an almost surreal scene, the ever-efficient IDF sends a massive truck with a bulldozer on the back and the car and everyone in it is buried
 forthwith.And then we have a second plot twist which you can see for yourself if you go to the film.

One of Foxtrot's main messages is that serving in the IDF is bad for you - mentally and physically. You get caught up in. it, and it changes you forever. A sub-message is that surviving the holocaust blights your relationships. And while these are not the cheeriest messages, it was a pretty engrossing watch. Foxtrot was directed by Samuel Moaz who directed Lebanon (set inside an Israeli tank in the 1982 war with Lebanon) which we have also seen,

Anne's rating 3.5/5

The Reports on Sarah and Saleem

We've seen quite a few movies about Palestinians who live in the West Bank (Paradise Now, A Wedding in Ramallah, Omar, Private, The Zoo) but few about Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. So  The Reports on Sarah and Saleem broke some new ground in terms of both that and interaction between Jewish and Arab Israeli citizens.

So in this movie, Sarah is a Jewish Israeli cafe owner, and Saleem is a Palestinian who delivers croissants to her cafe. They move in different circles but they both live in Jerusalem. They both have distracted spouses - Sarah's husband David is an officer in the IDF and is often away and Saleem's wife Bisan is pregnant and is declining sex because it's bad for the baby. So they have motive, proximity and opportunity for the affair they embark on. The bakery van provides a handy venue. You could say their affair was bound to lead to trouble but it seemed harmless enough initially.

The event that really starts the trouble is a late-night trip to Bethlehem. Despite the plan to pretend Sarah is foreign by having her only speak in English, she's rumbled as Jewish and some unhappy Arabs not only give Saleem a hard time, they report him to the authorities, and things escalate from there.

Any affair has potentially troublesome ramifications and I guess the plot revolves around the many ramifications that this affair had, in this politically and racially charged part of the world. Many of them were unexpected, and I was never bored and never knew quite what was going to happen next. This movie is quite woman-centric for a Middle-Eastern film and I liked how Sarah and Bisan didn't just roll over and do what their husbands wanted. I liked how interesting and well-acted some of the lesser characters were - Saleem's lawyer Maryam and the bald Israeli security guy in particular..

Jerusalem looked beautiful as always and the similarities and differences between Jewish and Arab Israelis were nicely highlighted.

Anne's rating 4.5/5 Ian's rating 4.5/5

The Gatekeepers

Last year there was Ra'anan Alexandrowicz's The Law In These Parts, interviews with Israeli military judges and prosecutors. Much of the evidence against the Palestinians prosecuted and tried by them came from Shin Bet (aka Shabak or GSS). This year Dror Moreh interviews six retired heads of Shin Bet in The Gatekeepers. While the earlier documentary gave us information on how that part of the machinery of the military occupation works, this one gives us a glimpse into another component of that machinery. Dror Moreh says he was inspired by The Fog of War, hence he is less interested in the detail of how Shin Bet works than in the opinions of 6 men who know more about Palestinians than other Israelis and also know more about Israeli actions and decision making from Israeli prime ministers, the IDF, Jewish settlers and terrorists to their own Shin Bet operations.

The six are:

1980-1986 Avraham Shalom
1988-1994 Yaakov Peri
1994-1996 Carmi Gillon
1996-2000 Ami Ayalon
2000-2005 Avi Dichter
2005-2011 Yuval Diskin

Don't expect any major mea culpas. Their job was to prevent Palestinian terrorism against Israel, more accurately frustrate or deter it where possible and to take revenge when desired. Shin Bet's role does not extend to resolving Palestinian issues with Israel. They see their role as preventing Israeli deaths while the politicians solve the political problems. They see any Israeli death as a failure, by that measure they know they did their job well but not perfectly. Avraham Shalom was the most reluctant, but they admitted that Shin Bet was not perfect in a legal or moral sense either. What really annoyed these guys was the failure of Israeli Prime Ministers to solve issues between Israel and Palestinians. In their view from David Ben-Gurion to Yitzhak Shamir, Israeli Prime Ministers did not acknowledge there was an issue to solve and, with the exception of Yitzhak Rabin who made an effort, none since have tried hard enough to resolve the conflict. Since 1967 they see their role as providing safety to Israeli civilians until the politicians came up with a solution. What they didn't see (or perhaps saw but didn't acknowledge) was that Shin Bet's success in keeping a lid on Palestinian frustration allowed successive Israeli governments to do nothing, or worse.

If there is one group of Israelis these guys detested more than their Prime Ministers it is rabbis who incite their congregations. Carmi Gillon in particular, who dealt with the rise of Jewish terrorism and the assassination of Rabin, was particularly bitter over the very early release from prison of most of the Jewish terrorists Shin Bet had uncovered and brought to trial, due to their political and religious connections.

While Ami Ayalon admitted that from a Palestinian point of view he was a terrorist, and while there was an admission that many of the missions were revenge rather than prevention all six were reluctant to admit that there was a circle of revenge Jew against Palestinian against Jew against Palestinian and so on. I presume they didn't want to see themselves as a factor in fuelling the terrorism they were charged with preventing.

At one point there was a brief discussion on the philosophy of terrorism prevention. If you kill or lock up enough terrorists or prospective terrorists then you will eventually reach the bottom of the barrel. You won't get the last few terrorists but they will either be deterred or too few to cause much trouble. This seems to be the Bush-Obama strategy too. Between Jews and Palestinians we've had 130 odd  years and no sign of the bottom of the barrel. Perhaps solving the political issues may be a better approach.

There is some detail on how Shin Bet operates and how that has changed as technology has improved (in particular the use of drones). At the base is detailed background information on an area: maps, building plans, who lives where and who knows who, how society is structured (families, clans, organisations etc). Ongoing information on people's movements, phone tapping and internet monitoring are hinted at but not discussed. More intrusively there are searches, interrogation, and "getting people to tell you what they don't want to tell you" (blackmail, intimidation, torture etc). To find out what a person of interest is up to look at their associates and pick one that is susceptible to being "turned" -- even if you have done nothing wrong you still have plenty to fear from Shin Bet. On top of that there are arrests, imprisonment, torture and assassinations. It is no surprise Palestinians hate Shin Bet more than they hate the IDF. During the occupation of Lebanon, Shin Bet applied the same techniques there and the film boasts that they quickly controlled "everything that went on in Lebanon".

Trailer

Ian's rating 5/5

5 Broken Cameras

5 Broken Cameras is Emad Burnat's personal account of how his village tries to defend its land between 2005 and 2010. There are two attacks on the land owned by the people of Bil’in. The Israeli army takes a strip of land to build the West Bank barrier (and its associated road) that cuts off villagers off from most of their land. The Jewish settlers from the adjacent settlement of Modi'in Illit, burn and bulldoze olive trees and build more houses and apartments on some of the cut off land.

In 2005 Bil’in petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court (via an Israeli human rights lawyer). On September 4, 2007, the Court ordered the government to change the route of the wall near Bil'in. The next day the same court legalized the parts of Modi'in Illit being built on Bil'in land (more background here).

5 Broken Cameras is not about the court cases taking place across the border but with the situation on the ground. It is about Emad Burnat filming his family trying to farm on the other side of the barrier. It is about the villagers led by two of his friends demonstrating against the barrier in a well known weekly protest. Protesting against settlers putting portable buildings to claim the land and the villagers putting up building of their own in a counter point. Emad also films the soldiers as they come to the village both day and night to arrest men and boys.

The Israeli soldiers don't like being filmed and constantly tell Emad to stop, even when he is in his own house. The settlers are even more outraged at being filmed and far less restrained in their reactions. During the 5 years that Emad films what is going on in and around Bil'in 5 of his cameras are smashed or shot, this coupled with time in jail and time in hospital means that there are gaps in the narrative but that doesn't detract from the impact of the film. The broken cameras punctuate the film and divide it into chapters.

4 years after Bil'in won in the court, the Israeli army started to dismantle the barrier and built a new wall closer to Modi'in Illit and further from Bil'in but still on their land.

5 Broken Cameras is filmed and narrated by Emad Burnat with editing and further direction by Guy Davidi and funding and post production from various other countries.

If you think that the Jewish-Palestinian conflict is too complicated to understand or that the conflict is all about Jews defending themselves from Palestinian aggression then this is a must see film. If you are already aware of the theft of Palestinian land by Israel, then this more personal view of the situation, filmed and narrated by a local villager (rather than an outsider) may appeal to you.

Ian's rating 3.5/5

The Law in These Parts

The most boring documentary format is the studio interview. To keep audience attention the subject being discussed or the people being interviewed must be extraordinarily interesting.

The Law in These Parts opens with a old man unfolding and holding up a poster declaring martial law in Hebrew and Arabic. He tells us this is one of hundreds printed for the IDF years before the Six Day War, in preparation for the possibility that Israel would occupy all or part of an Arab country.

The men interviewed in The Law in These Parts are retired military judges. Some are candid, others are evasive¹, some flip-flop. Mostly their answers, while partisan, are refreshingly free of the trite and unconvincing statements that all too often used to justify Israeli actions. The interviews are interleaved to cover the development of Israeli military jurisdiction over Palestinians chronologically from 1967 to 2011².

The film starts with an explanation of what Law means in a military context, its purpose, how it differs from other law, how Israeli military courts function, how military laws are made and changed (at the whim of the Regional Commander, though there are hints that higher command and politicians also get involved) and how the civilian population finds out what the laws are (sometimes by notices and loudspeaker but more often by being arrested by soldiers). The judges pointed out that military law must match International Law, in particular the Geneva Convention. Though they had trouble with justifying blowing up houses and other actions they said were designed dissuading resistance to with the ban on collective punishment and reprisals in the 4^th Geneva Convention. The contradiction between the Jewish settlements and Article 49 was also touched on. The film skims over the expansion of the Law to cover everything from putting up posers and throwing stones to cosmetics and accountants, and moves onto some of the landmark cases and their consequences.

One aspect of military occupation that Israelis are quite proud of (and the judges being interviewed were no exception) is that the Israeli Supreme Court functions as the court of appeal for populations under Israeli military rule. It is not clearly explained how and why this came about, but consequences of this form one of the main threads of the documentary. One of the cases appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court in 1979 was of some land confiscated by the IDF for military purposes and handed over to settlers the same day. When the Supreme Court later said that the confiscation was illegal the Minister of Agriculture held a meeting to decide how to get around the ruling. One of the interviewees proudly described how he told the Minister of an Ottoman Law that allowed the Ottoman government to confiscate land more than a cock's crow from a village and that hadn't been farmed for at least 3 years³. The Minister, Ariel Sharon, arranged for a helicopter survey of the West Bank looking for such land.

In cases where the Supreme Court overrules the IDF, unlike its normal swift and decisive manner, can take years to begin to rectify the situation. The film also pointed out that overruling of military decisions by the Supreme Court is rare, normally the Supreme Court finds in favour of the military providing a judicial seal of approval for the IDF's actions.

The aspect of the documentary troubled the interviewees the most and one that they were pressed hardest on was their knowledge of and how they dealt with the torture victims and information gained via torture. Most (but not all) of the judges initially claimed they had no knowledge that torture was taking place. When asked how they dealt with Palestinians detainees who said they had been tortured or looked beaten up, the general response was that if there was a conflict between something a Palestinian said and what the GSS (aka Shin Bet or Shabak) said; they always believed the GSS because Palestinians have a reason to lie!

The judges were also asked how the military law applied to Israeli civilians when they are in the Occupied Territories. The answer is that military law somehow does not apply to Israeli civilians nor to the land they are on when they are in the Occupied Territories. On the other hand (and this was something that troubled some of the judges) it seems that Israeli police and civilian law also does not apply to the activities of Israeli civilians acting against Palestinians - a useful legal black hole for "enterprising" Jewish settlers to exploit⁴.

The final thing that some of the interviewees mentioned was that they thought that military law is really only a temporary solution. On the other hand they did not offer an alternative - certainly not withdrawing back to Israel.

Despite its unpromising format and unspecific title, The Law in These Parts is a gripping and informative documentary. A must see for anyone interested in law in the wild west.

Ian's rating 5/5


Footnotes:
1. The oldest and most evasive of the interviewees was 86 year old Justice Meir Shamgar Brig.-Gen. (ret) President of the Israel Supreme Court 1983-95 (first appointed to the court in 1975), served in the IDF from 1948 and was previously a member of the Zionist terror organisation Irgun. In 1944 the British send him to a detention camp in Eritrea, where he studied law by a correspondence course with the University of London.

2. It does not cover military rule in the Golan Heights and Sinai after 1967 or in parts of Israel from 1948-1960s.

3. This sounds similar to an Ottoman law used inside Israel to confiscate land from Israeli Arabs.

4. Actually if Israeli civilians cooperate with or defend Palestinians they are liable to be manhandled, shot or arrested (briefly) by the IDF, whereas Israeli civilians acting against Palestinians will be protected by and assisted by the IDF.

Policeman

Shira practices her speech

Policeman is a film that is clearly divided into 3 acts. Act I focuses on an Israeli police anti-terrorism squad. A group of fit young macho men who like being out in the sun, socialise together and have an eye for beautiful girls. It focuses particularly on Yaron who loves his mother, is devoted to his pregnant wife and has a soft spot for babies. Yaron gets the job of convincing Ariel (who is on sick leave with a brain tumour) that he should take the rap for an incident some time ago when the squad killed some Palestinian civilians. Not that the squad really believes the case will actually come to court.

Act II switches the focus to 4 idealistic left wing activists: Shira (a pretty rich girl) and 3 middle class guys. This group seem held together by undeclared sexual attractions to each other. They are planning a kidnapping in order to read their political grievances on TV. This is a short flowery speech complaining about state asset sales and the widening income gap between rich and poor.

Act III is a billionaire's wedding reception where the activists take 3 billionaires hostage and it become immediately obvious they haven't thought through how the next step is going to play out. During the tense wait Shira berates the bride: "You are not a woman, but a bride. You have no face - you've got make up. You have no breasts, but perfectly fitted bra. You have no body - you have this dress. And this dress is exactly in the size of your personality". In the end it is all over in 2 seconds. As the rest of the police squad leave, Yaron watches Shira die and the credits roll.

Judging from the whispers around me at the end, I was not the only person who was wondering if I had missed something. Thinking about it afterwards I wondered if the film was really about small group dynamics rather than the events, the characters or the politics.

Reviews I have read fall into two camps: those who are confused by the film and those who hail it as a great Israeli political film (e.g. "one of the most provocative films to come out of Israel in recent years; Waltz with Bashir and Lebanon are, by comparison, tame and equivocating" Richard Porton, Cinéaste). If group dynamics is subject of the film then surely it is sociological rather than political, but perhaps I am splitting hairs.

Ian's rating 1/5

Footnote

There are lots of topics worthy of a movie - father/son relationships, moral dilemmas, academic rivalry and Asperger's syndrome but few movies deal with all of these at once. Footnote does. It's hard to try and describe the plot succinctly, but I shall try.

Footnote centres around the two Professors Schkolnik - the Father (Eliezer) and Son (Uriel) who both work in the Talmudic Studies Department at the Hebrew University. Eliezer is a philologist whose life's work on translations of the Talmud was gazumped by just before publication by a Professor Grossman's rival publication. Eliezer exhibits signs of Asperger's syndrome - he has walked the same route to work every day for the last forty years, always works with industrial ear protection and has an impressive scrapbook collection and a permanent frown. Uriel is much more involved in teaching and networking and is a more sociable and communicative guy.

One day, Eliezer gets a phone call to say that he has been awarded the Israel Prize - remarkable not just because it's Israel's highest honour but because he has been nominated every year for the last twenty years and never won, and because Professor Grossman is the chairman of the judging committee.

Next, Uriel gets a phone call from Professor Grossman summonsing him to a secret meeting at the University. The meeting is the Israel Prize judging committee and they tell him he's there because he has been nominated for the Israel Prize and that the phone call to his father was a mistake. They want Uriel to be the one to break the news to his father, which is, of course, an appalling prospect This meeting is the comic centrepiece of the film - about 8 mostly elderly academics packed into a tiny office (the door can't be opened without someone getting up) discussing a highly emotive topic. Initially Uriel agrees to tell his Father but later persuades the committee to award this prize to his father anyway. Grossman agrees but only if Uriel writes the judges citation.

And therein lies the problem. Eliezer is a wordsmith, and he recognizes his son's style. He's already had his suspicions raised by the very long time the letter confirming his prize took to arrive. The great lengths that his son has gone to to preserve his dignity and his feelings are to no avail. And of course being inhibited in the communication department, they're never going to discuss it.

Footnote is, at times, almost excruciating to watch. It has elements of a detective story, like Name of the Rose, so you get quite involved. At times, its very funny. Given how much the people next to me were laughing, it's probably funnier if you are more familiar with Israel that I am. It certainly makes you reflect on the merits of trying to spare someone's feelings, whether they'd be grateful if they knew and whether they'd reciprocate if they were in the same position. And you can reflect on how relatives aren't always easy to love.

Anne's rating 3/5

Ajami

"I knew something bad was going to happen today" says Nasri, the young Muslim Arab-Israeli narrator of Ajami, which is the neighbourhood of Jaffa where the film is set. In fact it seems that something bad happens in Ajami every day and its just a matter of degree. The bad stuff isn't all what you expect - a number of Israeli or Palestinian films we've seen in recent years focus on how Israeli Government policy has made life difficult for Arabs, particularly in terms of restricting freedom of movement (and Ajami has its share of illegal labour coming in from the West Bank) but this film gives additional perspectives.

The first new perspective is on home-grown terrorism by Bedouin gangs who, mafia-style, demand protection money from local businesses and indulge in drive-by shootings and arson if they don't get what they want.

A second new perspective is the difficulties of inter-religious relationships - Nasri's older brother Omar has a Christian girlfriend (his boss's daughter)and one of his fellow employees has a Jewish girlfriend - which just goes to complicate what's already a complicated existence.

Thirdly we have the local drug trade and the local police force thrown in for extra excitement.

Ajami is a circular story which follows Omar for a few days and shows how all the factors I've described impinge on his life and the lives of those around him. The credits roll with Omar running for his life , and you can see his life isn't going to get any less complicated anytime soon.

Anne's rating 3/5
Ian's rating 4/5

Lebanon

Soon after this film started I had to ask Anne which Lebanon war this was about. Because the film takes place entirely inside a tank there is little to identify where and when the events are taking place. Lebanon (like Waltz with Bashir) is about Israel's 1982-2000 invasion (rather than the 1978 or 2006 invasions). The enemy is merely identified as terrorists (but are the PLO).

The first thing that struck me was how scared and undisciplined the four Israeli tank crew are compared with the ten or so Israeli soldiers walking ahead of the tank. This difference in attitude is never explained. What is going on outside the tank is mostly seen through the gunner's sight, which gives a magnified, yet constricted view of the world. The other thing that seemed odd to me is that the turret hatch is operated from outside so people can jump into the tank without a by-your-leave!

This is a movie about four scared young men who don't want to go to war, don't want to be in the army and don't want to kill people. They bicker with each other. They are horrified by what they see and are ordered to do. The war as we/they see it is obviously a one-sided affair with a modern war machine pitted against lightly armed amateurs and civilians, with predictable results.

Written and directed by Samuel Maoz, who served in this war, it is a look at war from the point of view of those that don't want to be involved in war and don't see the point of it. It has the feeling of a film that was made from a play, with its small cast, single set and the importance of the dialog as opposed to action. If you want to see a film about the 1982-2000 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Waltz with Bashir is a much better film (I have yet to see Beaufort - set at the other end of this war).

There was odd moment of shock at one point when a Christian Phalangist fighter (Ashraf Barhom) turns and smiles with the same feral smile he used as Ammonius the Christian preacher in Agora a couple of days ago!

Ian's rating 2/5 Anne's rating 3.5/5

Anne: This wasn't just a film about not wanting to be involved in war; it also deals with what it's like to be inside a tank (something I hadn't considered before), what it's like to be required to actually fight rather than practice and what its like if your fellow soldiers don't behave in the prescribed way. I was engrossed, and not just because the gunner looked like Daniel Carter. And we saw some little blue penguins on the way to the movie - always a highlight. .

Waltz with Bashir

10-20 years ago documentaries were programs we watched on TV, but things changed and documentaries became gradually rarer on TV and people wrung their hands. But unpredicted documentaries reappeared, this time at the cinema, even occasionally at cinemas run by Hoyts and Reading. Not only have they reappeared but they have become more innovative and even been imitated as mockumentaries (Forgotten Silver, Dark Side of the Moon, Strictly Ballroom and Razzle Dazzle). Using reconstruction is relatively common in documentaries but Waltz with Bashir takes this further by using animation for its reconstructed scenes (including people's dreams and memories) and also for its interviews (Noise Control turns this approach into a mockumentary).

Director Ali Folman (who co-directed the X-files like comedy Saint Clara) served in the Israel Army during the Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon (at age 19) and had trouble remembering some parts of what happened. After being rung by a friend who was troubled by nightmares of being chased by 26 dogs, he hunts down former army colleagues in an effort to fill in the gaps. This film documents that process.

Some of the men have more accurate memories and some have less . More interesting than the filling in the gaps is the general impression one is left with of how the Israel Army conducted its operations and apparently how little the average Israeli soldier understood of where they were and what they were doing there. Also some of the surreal experiences, such as walking through the terminal at Beirut airport.

The film climaxes with the infamous massacre at the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camp. The film steers clear of the controversy over how many Palestinians were killed (700-3500) but comes down with a clear statement of who was responsible. Namely Israel's allies, the Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia, who, angry after the assassination of their leader Bashir Gemayel, were sent into the camps with the cooperation of the Israelis and did the killing, until stopped by an Israeli general (the film suggests that the order to stop came the next day, Wikipedia states that the massacre and body disposal took 2½ days). It exonerates the Israeli soldiers but implicates their commanders all the way up to Minister of Defence Arial Sharon, in knowing that the massacre was under way and doing nothing to stop it, while continuing to provide military support to the Phalangist militia during the massacre.

The angular style of animation, with bold, red/orange, colours and black shadows are very effective for a war movie. The moment at which the film breaks out of animation into "live action" footage was very well chosen.

Ian's rating 4/5
Anne's rating 4/5

The Band's Visit

This is a very gentle situation comedy - the situation being that an Egyptian Police Band (the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, actually) which has come to Israel to perform at the Arab Cultural Centre in Petah Tiqva ends up in Beit Hatikva. Beit Hatikva (which Wikipedia says is a fictional town) is in the Negev Desert and not only doesn't have an Arab cultural centre, it doesn't have a hotel either, and having arrived on the last bus of the day, the band has a big problem.

Fortunately the cafe owner takes pity on them and allows three of the band members to sleep at the cafe, sends another three home with one of her perpetual customers and takes the last two home with her. These two are the somewhat uptight band leader Tawfiq and the simply gorgeous Khaled, who probably makes the ticket price worth it just on his own.The film is basically the story of how the band members pass the evening in a town with essentially nothing to do. The band members don't speak Hebrew and the locals don't speak Arabic so the dialogue is a little stilted (mostly in English) and the story proceeds at a leisurely pace.

I was expecting a bit more than I got from this film - perhaps some more Israeli/Arab tension, perhaps the exploring of some prejudice, perhaps an impromptu concert. The theory of the band members situation was more comic and thought-provoking than the actuality. The Band's Visit was a perfectly pleasant film, but nothing amazing.

Anne's rating 3/5

The premise for this film sounded excellent and I thought it would give plenty of fodder for comedy, but I was disappointed, the film makers missed so much. Yes there is comedy but it is gentle comedy, in small doses. Though I did like the very understated "don't mention the war" scene when a band member notices that he is sitting next to a picture of an Israeli tank, he says nothing but hangs his hat over the picture. The opposite of Basil Fawlty.

Ian's rating 2/5

5 Days

The removal of the Israeli Jews from the fortified settlements built in the Gaza strip took 5 days. 5 days of intense, papparazzi like, media attention. The question was "how serious was the Israeli government?". Given that the IDF was doing the moving you can argue that the answer was never in doubt; no sane Israeli politician (especially not an ex-general like Sharon) would use the IDF as a political fall-guy. But given Sharon's previous attitude to the settlements perhaps some people believed he could change his mind again at the last minute.

This documentary followed three converging players: the general in charge of moving the settlers, a protest organiser outside the settlements and a couple of almost hippy-like settlers who believe Gaza is God's gift to them. In the bit parts are 8,000 settlers, 40,000 soldiers and police and hundreds (possibly thousands) of protesters. In the audience are the media, and through them 'The World'. On the fringes are the Palestinians of Gaza.

One thing that should strike you is what you don't see. Guns. There is an assault rifle leaning up in the corner of the general's office and other assault rifles pointed at the Palestinians by the soldiers guarding the settlements (not part of the 40,000 who move the settlers), but rest of this documentary is a gun-free zone. But the strangest thing is that the gun-free nature of the process is not discussed or mentioned!

There is lots of potential for clashes between the various factions to derail the process but in fact the biggest hold-ups and potential hold-ups come from within the army. Some of the commanders who report to the general find all sorts of ways to avoid or slow down the implementation of orders. One officer in particular gets close to insubordination / incompetence.

The film provides a partial insight into the Alice-in-Wonderland nature of Israeli politics.

Ian’s Rating: 2.5/5
Anne’s Rating: 3/5

Close to Home

Teenage girl conscript border guards in Jerusalem is a setting for a film about girls dealing with the change from being kids to adults. Dealing with protective or absent parents. Dealing with authority. Dealing the boredom and pettiness of their jobs (strip searching Palestinian women at check points, asking people on the street and on buses who look like Arabs for their ids and writing down the details). Dealing with or hunting for boyfriends. And trying to make friends and fit in with other girls in their unit.

It has been compared with "My Summer of Love" but doesn’t come close the anarchy and eroticism of that film. It is generally low-key, matter of fact and often funny. Anne thought it felt like a pilot for a TV series about an all female unit of conscript border guards.

Ian’s Rating: 3/5
Anne’s Rating: ?/5

Avenge but one of my two eyes

The story of Masada seems important to Israel. The Jewish revolt and military operations against Roman occupation is used as a historical precedent for a Jewish military tradition. The despair of the garrison under siege is an inspiration for Jews to never allow such a situation to be repeated. And the suicide of the garrison also requires special explanation with respect to Jewish anti-suicide theology.

The story of Samson is an even older story of Jewish strength followed by defeat, then despair and finally revenge through suicide. Samson killed more people with his suicide than he did while alive. This great Jewish hero is also remembered in Israel today through the education system, through pilgrimages and as political inspiration.

This is a documentary tells these two stories punctuated with fragments of a long rambling phone call between the film maker and an almost suicidal Palestinian friend, scenes of interactions between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian coming home from school, plough fields, going to hospital etc.

The film maker goes no further than that though he certainly isn’t pulling his punches.

Ian’s Rating 4/5 Anne's rating:4/5