User Reviews

A Good documentary with more audio information than video presentation. I learned a lot about Theodor Hertzl, his life and personal issues from his upbringing & childhood to his death at age 44. He was a very interesting man, a journalist and playwright as well as the founder of the Zionist Movement. A problem with this documentary is that there isn't that much of a photo record of his life, (1860-1904) so they reused the same stills multiple times and inserted lots of old stock pictures of important individuals & footage from turn-of-the-century Vienna and Paris, interspersed with more modern stock footage and street frontage shots of important places in Hertzl's life. Again, Lots of great info about Hertzl's life and struggles, but dry and slow if the viewer has a short attention span and needs lots of video to support the audio data.

Narrated by the amazing ben kingsley, with christoph waltz as theodor herzl. "if you will it, it is no dream!" with narration from shimon peres, who was president of israel when this was made. We hear about the persecution of the jews, and alfred dreyfus specifically, in france. Dreyfus had been accused of selling secrets to the germans, but was not able to convince the courts of his innocence. Theodor herzl, born in 1860, was a journalist, and was trying to think of the best solution, where the jews could just live life and prosper, without unjust interference. He was quite educated, and worked as lawyer, playwright, and later, journalist. His writings concluded that only a separate country, occupied and run by jewish citizens could give them a place of peace and solidarity. While he died quite young, his ideas were recognized as the early foundation of a separate, jewish state. It's a LONG but interesting documentary, for those with the patience. It's pretty dry, but I did learn several things I had not known before. Good stuff!