I saw a most excellent film on Friday. Here's the blurb about "Walk on Water":
Two years after Yossi and Jagger, American born, Israeli director Etan Fox returns with Walk on Water, a colorful, contemporary road movie that takes its characters around Israel and later to Berlin. A hit man for Mossad is given the mission to track down the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex Nazi officer, who might be still alive. Pretending to be a tour guide he befriends his grandson Axel, who is in Israel to visit his sister. He wants to convince her to come back to Germany for their Father's birthday party.
The two men set out on an extended tour of the country during which, Axel's frank and open attitude challenges Eyal's rigid, clichéd values. The two men explore their prejudices, fears, and desires with a remarkable outcome.
So, I believe the true test of any film is whether or not you are still thinking about it a few days later. And more of a test is when it digs deeply and makes you examine your own emotions about things that may not have even been the focal point of the movie.
So "Walk on Water" scored high on every count. It is a huanting, memorable film that I will think about for years to come. The whole conflict of Jew meets German and the constant questions (what did you talk about when you were kids…) on one level made for a very intriguing concept. On another, right up to the minute that the old nazi guy may or may not show up in the film, it's was a very much edge-of-your-seat experience. When the nazi guy did show up, then it was super intense and filled with the quintesential "WWPD" moment*.
But more than all of that, the concept of terrorism struck me maybe for the first time. If the movie is factual, and a quick scan of recent headlines shows that it is, while we talk about terrorism every day, the people in Isreal live with it every day. It is death and destruction and mindless violence that is so common that the radio stations have special programs to play "whenever a bomb goes off" to help sooth everyone. In the course of the movie, there were two bombs. That's in one week.
What are we going to do to make the terrorism stop?
