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Reviews
Troy (2004)
Bad film, overall.
I admit, I never read the whole Illiad. It is one of those great stories few filmmaker dare to make into a movie. You have a horde of characters, ten years of horrible war, twists and turn with every phrase. So Wolfgang Petersen, a once great director, decided to rewrite the story. it is the story of how the the gods play with man and how man's own hubris is bringing him down (the motto of all Greek tragedies), but rather how man cause his own downfall. This is fine, you take the gods out and some of the characters, but why doing it so poorly? why the plot so weak, the greatest war in its time and it is fought out in 3-4 days? How come the Trojans fall for the horse trick? The reasons given do not hold any water. The battle scenes are unrealistic, this is not LOTR and not Braveheart of Henry V. The Greeks rarely used archers in large scale and only used short bows! The first battle scene is an ancient times Private Ryan's Omaha beach scene remake - stupid. The fighting scene between Achilles and Hector looks bad, I don't know how the ancient Greek fought, but it was surely never done that way. Why casting Orlando Bloom as Paris. Sure Mr. Bloom is a pretty face and brings people to the cinema, but he has no charisma. Brad Pitt is also a very bad, two dimensional Achilles, I can't see him leading Greece most fearsome soldiers into combat. Even Peter O'Toole can't save the poor cast. I give it 5/10 out of pure pity (should have been 3/10)
Knafayim Shvurot (2002)
A fist in the stomach
Director Nir Bergman creation is considered as one of the pinnacles of the Israeli cinema. The story is universal but also very intimate and local. Haifa, the working-class industrial and port city is the perfect background for the movie. an old Israeli song has the line "Haifa - A real city", and like the city in the background, the characters are all very real. Dafna (Silbersatz Banai) is a wary midwife-nurse, constantly escaping her unsolved grief of her recently deceased husband. The older children, Maya (Maron) and Yair (Gaviratz) try to find their own ways to cope with lose, like their mother, they rather run away than confront. The younger son, Ido (Magon), is acting calm on the surface, but his risk taking acts and social avoidance are showing the cracks in his psyche.
When the fragile family is facing a crisis, the characters must confront and solve their own grieving and accusations.
Maya try to escape to Tel-Aviv, the prototypical big city. Tel-Aviv is only 100km south of Haifa, but might as well be light-years away. She can escape to Tel-Aviv, but she takes the guilt and accusations with her, and in the big city, nobody cares.
Nir Bergman is delivering this bare-bone drama with a fist to the stomach. This is real life, No great love story, no special effects or action, with great supporting actors and soundtrack. It is an anthem for simple people, an anthem for the family and its strength. Rent this DVD and watch it with your loved one, you will not regret it.
10/10 for a local film 9/10 overall