Walk on Water

This is a unique film that has several layers all happening at once.

The clash between gay and hetro men. The Israeli-Arab conflict. Bringing Natzi criminals to justice. All this and more while undergoing a sight-seeing tour north and south of Israel with its beautiful scenery.

To summerise... A must see film. Not your usual expected Hollywood drama but a true multi-cultural story with dynamic and evolving characters.

"Walk on Water" is courageous film, confidently directed by Eytan Fox based on the screenplay written by his partner Gal Uchovsky and well acted. Its subject is a Mossad's agent whose new mission is to hunt the former Nazi criminal who lives nowadays somewhere in South America. In order to trace him, Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi) takes a job as a tourist guide for the grandson of war criminal - sociable, open, friendly young German, Axel. Axel arrives to Israel to visit his sister Pia who chose to live in Israel and work in a kibbutz and to talk her into reconciling with their parents. Eyal drives Alex in his SUV, shows him the country. They sit on the coast of Dead Sea, both smeared by celebrated therapeutic mud from neck to toes. In another scene, Alex tries to walk on the water of Kinarteth (the Sea of Galilee); three of them visit the gay- bar in Tel Aviv - Alex does not hide his sexual orientation.

The characters are interesting and compelling. The story is engaging and I feel connected to the movie the way very few movies make me. I recognize the places I've been to and I've come to love and to dream of seeing them again and again. The film starts in Istanbul, Turkey on the boat over the Bosphor and the guide talks about the bridge between Europe and Asia. I've been on the boat like that and I saw the bridge. Then the action takes place in Israel and I was happy to recognize Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, The Sea of Galilee (Kinereth), The Dead Sea where one just floats without swimming, the desert.

The plot moves from Israel to Berlin where Eyal is visiting with his new friend's family. Alex's and Pia's father celebrates his anniversary and for the first time, a helpless dying old man arrives to Berlin, the Nazi criminal, Axel's and Pia's grandfather, Eyal's target. The film explores the moral dead ends of the modern society full of hostility and old unpaid debts. Eyal remembers the history of his country and its people, he knows not from the books about Holocaust. He is a soldier and must be merciless but he has to learn something about understanding from his young German friend. Film attracts by the non-standard approach to the familiar themes of religious prejudices, homophobia, neo-fascism, newest terror and other sources of the hatred, which destroys the world. It would not surprise me to find out that the film has many detractors in Germany, Palestine, and in Israel. The final is a little too neat and belongs to the modern fairy tale genre. I see it as the director's dream that he wanted to come true - the people with different backgrounds, mentalities, history, and preferences would understand one another and would come toward one another with the open hearts and clean thoughts. Dreams, dreams...

Sometimes the opening credits predict a great deal about the film itself. Sometimes it's a deliberate decision of the director and sometimes it's a plain business decision. James bond's movies always began with silhouettes of highly attractive women holding guns in a "I'm having a seizure" postures (a long and annoying tradition that stopped only on "Die another day") , Ed Wood films opening credits were presented as epitaffs on graves (indicating that people would see the films over their dead bodies) etc.

This film's credits are pretty conventional, only they are in English. This is more than slightly perplexing since this film is not only shot, mainly, in Israel but also because it deals with a topic that is highly charged and controversial among Israelis, namely, the collaboration with modern day Germany, in light of the not so distant past of the Holocaust.

Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi in a terrific performance) is a Mossad agent, returning from Turkey after an efficient and clean assassination of a Terrorist only to find that during his absence his wife, Iris, committed suicide. Eyal, an obtuse individual who only benefited from it in his work, seems unaffected emotionally by such a tragic loss and the worried powers that be demote him (to his dismay) to gather information about a Nazi criminal that lives a clandestine life in an undisclosed location. Eyal poses as a tour guide for Axel, the Nazi's grandson, visiting his sister in a Kibbutz (a once glorified and now decaying socialist community) after she disengaged herself from her parents.

The "Spying" mission turns soon enough to be a "Roman a clef", a self discovery voyage where Eyal deals with his upbringing in a house of Holocaust survivors and the flaws of his character that made him a first rate assassin but a third rate human being. Axel, the German tourists who starts as Eyal's nemesis (not only because of his origin but also due to his gay tendencies and his merry and merciful personality), ends up as the one who turns Eyal's life around.

The relationship with modern day Germany is still a touchy subject in Israel and will probably remain so for many decades to come. Till this day, many families don't travel to Germany or even buy German products and although I believe that no generation is born with a debt, I never judge those who boycott Germany considering the demons they have to face as a result of the never too distant to be forgotten Holocaust. This movie deals with the dealing of both Israelis and Germans with their past and with each other by the impossible friendship between Eyal and Axel.

The Latin credits, as I said before, are the prophecy for the filmmakers' intention for foreign viewing. It begins with the almost apologetic mentioning that Eyal's assassination "victim" is a terrorist , continues with the too PC and not very plot-essential coexistence with the Israeli-Arab population and the atmosphere of the gay night life.

Moreover, the film conveniently deals with another controversial subject, Palestinian Terror, in a manner that is easier for the European "creative stomach" to digest. At a certain point, its over flown with excessive self-righteousness that is rarely identified in a terror ridden country.

That reservation is the film's only major flaw and, altogether, the collaboration between the writer, Gal Uchovski, and director, Eitan Fuchs, spawns one of the best written and directed Israeli films I came across. Aided with wonderful acting and well constructed plot, this film encounters its major controversial issue bravely and authentically which I assume, atones the writer and driector's failure to do so in its minor one.

8.5 out of 10 in my FilmOmeter.

I won't bother to summarize the movie, because many of the existing user comments give very detailed descriptions of the plot (much more information than someone who hasn't seen the movie yet would want). I just want to encourage anyone who hasn't seen the movie to check it out. It's a provocative movie, exploring a bunch of interesting themes, including Israeli relations with both Palestinians and Germans. I also found it to be an engaging film, with interesting characters and many involving story lines. It's almost a fable or fairytale, which the title alludes to. Go in the right frame of mind and you'll enjoy the movie very much, as I did.

This movie was billed as a film about a Mossad agent going after a war criminal. One would suspect something along the lines of The Bourne Identity or Munich. You would be sorely disappointed.

This is a film about life and about people. It is about forgiving and forgetting. It's about "getting over it." It is about acceptance of others regardless of their national origin or sexual orientation.

This film is full of surprises and it is how people deal with those surprises that is what is so fascinating about it. It is about generational differences and how the same thing affects the young and old.

If you are interested in Holocaust films or Israeli-Palestinaian relations, then this is a film you will certainly enjoy.