mysticwit

First person accounts, a master's thesis, a newspaper article about the thesis, and the scandal of truth makes Tantura is a gateway documentary about truth vs the manufactured myths of state creation.

Told in non-linear format, individuals connected to an Arab village recall 1948 events on camera as well as through decades old audio interviews. Memories and rationalizations clash as the true and hidden stories of atrocities are revealed.

All but exclusively interviewing Israelis, Tantura the documentary might be better entitled, Testimonies of Tantura, as only a few Arab voices are heard. While there are some village witnesses who survived interviewed, the focus is on Israeli perspectives, peeling away layers of taboo and myth to reveal the shocking truths, some told so casually, and justified so brazenly, that anyone watching will rightly start questioning the creation myth of the state of Israel.

Tantura is more than examination of an obscured massacre, it's an examination of the relationship Israelis have with the truth.

Pair Tantura this with 1948: Creation & Catastrophe (2017), another documentary relying on first-person accounts to gain better insight into the history of Israel and current events in Palestine.

This Jean Reno vehicle stalls at the start. I had to check that it was supposed to be based in Paris as only one actor (Reno) sounds or looks the part. The rest of the cast are primarily English speaking with American accents. With a city like Paris, you expect it to be a character in itself, but it's not. This is a police procedural that feels like the first storyboard version, without any actual development. It's large ensemble cast doesn't get any character development, and seem to just walk on set to utter a sentence or two, then walk off. Even Reno can't make this interesting. If it weren't 10 years old, I'd swear it was written, directed, cast, and edited by a chat bot.