MOVIE - Omar

NR (1:38)

Limited release 2/21/14 (Nominated for an Academy Award)

Viewed at Loft with Sheila 3--5-14

RT Critic: 88 Audience: 83

Cag: 5: Outstanding film

Directed by Hany Abu-Assad

Adopt Films

In Arabic with subtitles

The actor who played Omar, Adam Bakri, was mesmerizing.

My comments:  What a story!  (And what an incredibly high wall).  I'm thinking this took place in Jerusalem/West Bank/Occupied Territories - will do a little more research now, which is usually the way of it, right?  This was the only tiny problem I had - I had to spend a little too much time figuring out the setting.  I could understand the language being spoken was Arabic, but so were all the police-types.  I had no pre-information, but now that I've read the review, I'm glad I didn't.  Watching this movie with no previous "clue" about its content was the best thing I could have done.  The ending fit perfectly with the character and personality of the protagonist.  Anything else would have been untrue to his innermost character.  Added note:  I can't imagine living like this.  On either side, Palestinian or Israeli.  Human beings are human beings.  How do I know what I'd do if I were put into non-human situations?

Reviews: A tense, gripping thriller about betrayal, suspected and real, in the Occupied Territories. Omar (Adam Bakri) is a Palestinian baker who routinely climbs over the separation wall to meet up with his girl Nadja (Leem Lubany). By night, he's either a freedom fighter or a terrorist-you decide-ready to risk his life to strike at the Israeli military with his childhood friends Tarek (Eyad Hourani) and Amjad (Samer Bisharat). Arrested after the killing of an Israeli soldier and tricked into an admission of guilt by association, he agrees to work as an informant. So begins a dangerous game-is he playing his Israeli handler (Waleed F. Zuaiter) or will he really betray his cause? And who can he trust on either side? Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now) has made a dynamic, action-packed drama about the insoluable moral dilemmas and tough choices facing those on the frontlines of a conflict that shows no sign of letting up. 

MOVIE - The Attack

R (1:42)

Limited release 6/21/2013

Viewed with Sheila at the Loft on 8/22/2013

RT Critic: 91 Audience:  79

Cag:   2/it was okay 

In Hebrew with subtitles

Based on the book of the same title by Yasmina Khadra

Directed by Zlad Doueiri

Cohen Media Group

Rotten Tomatoes summary:  Amin Jaafari (Ali Suliman, Paradise Now) is an Israeli Palestinian surgeon, fully assimilated into Tel Aviv society. He has a loving wife, an exemplary career, and many Jewish friends. But his picture perfect life is turned upside down after a suicide bombing in a restaurant leaves nineteen dead, and the Israeli police inform him that his wife, Sihem (Reymonde Amsellem, Lebanon) who also died in the explosion, was responsible. Convinced of her innocence, Amin abandons the relative security of his adopted homeland and enters the Palestinian territories in pursuit of the truth. Once there, he finds himself in ever more dangerous places and situations. Determined, he presses on seeking answers to questions he never thought he would be asking.

My comments:  I loved the book - I read it when it first came out.  The movie left me with a totally different feeling.  At the end of the book, I think I understood how Jaafari felt.  Not at the end of the movie.  I can't understand his lack of conscience, it left me feeling empty and bereft.  It was a really tough movie, anyways.