Private

Today the 3rd Amendment to our Constitution appears to be a forgotten artifact of the Founding Era, for it forbids a practice that no longer troubles Americans - the quartering of soldiers in private homes. This was a big problem until the Revolution. This film demonstrates the practice in the Israli-Palestinian conflict as Israeli soldiers take over a Palestinian families home.

The father, Mohammed, struggles to keep his family from harm while he tries to maintain a sense of dignity in the face of this insult. Mohammed Bakri turns in a great performance in this film.

The most interesting aspects of the film are the different affects on the young children, and the depiction of some of the difficulties soldiers face in carrying out orders.

Well worth your time to see another aspect of war.

The first half of "Private" is frustrating as a set piece of European intellectualism and inauthenticity strained to establish a logic puzzle mind game, but the second half rises to the level of universal humanity.

There have been many movies about the stubborn old idealist who infuriates his family with his implacability ("Man of La Mancha," "The Field," "Straight Story," etc.) but co-writer/debut director Saverio Costanzo sets this one as a barely-believable Shakespeare-quoting, educated, middle class, secular Palestinian holding on to his house and his very large family amidst the volatility of the West Bank territories.

Each member of the family represents a type that has some similarity to the family in "Raisin in the Sun" -- the exhausted housewife who just wants her kids to be safe, the beautiful eldest, enscarfed daughter who argues against leaving for a European education to the apathetic sports-mad teen boy radicalized by his conflicts with Israelis to the traumatized little girl and the big-eyed curious, adorable little brother.

With much of the film shot in dark as shaky, pseudo-documentary digital video like night vision goggles, the forced comparison to "Diary of Anne Frank" doesn't quite hold up as the family is locked into their living room only at night by occupying Israeli soldiers as it is a principle not survival itself that the father is insisting upon. They seem to have complete daily freedom to shop and go to school (they say "madrassa" on the soundtrack but we see them do math homework not rotely memorize The Koran), but not to host friends.

While the film does well build up the tension of this nightly, stressful ritual, that is also true in nonpolitical hostage films from "Petrified Forest," to "Key Largo," "Desperate Hours," and on and on. The Israeli soldiers are as much types as the soldiers in the TV series "Over There." There's the barking sergeant, the sensitive intellectual and the bored joker just doing his job, but with the casual mention that these frustrated reservists are commuting distance from home, as was seen in "Kippur." The film is also unfair in only hinting at what attacks they, let alone their families at their home towns, have endured from Palestinian civilians to make them so aggressive and jumpy.

While it is ironic that the Palestinians and the Israelis have to speak broken English to each other to communicate, the larger themes are confused in perception to the audience because it is not clear what the participants do and do not understand as most of the conversations are translated for us in the subtitles. This is important because the second half of the film reaches an intriguing point where each side slowly starts to perceive each other as individuals and not as just "the other."

The turning point is when the oldest daughter breaks the rules restricting the family downstairs and spies on the soldiers billeted upstairs. Motivated initially by some kind of revenge fantasy, she is gradually overcome by natural curiosity, and perhaps voyeurism as they are hunky young men, and begins to parse out their relationships from their body language and activities, which she later relates fantastically to her equally curious younger brother. Shot only from her viewpoint, we begin to realize that a narrow sliver is really how each side has been seeing the other all along.

The film leaves no doubt that such insights are brief blips in the ongoing struggles between both sides that leave tragedy in the wake of the continued cycle of miscommunications and misperceptions.

Oddly, this is the second recent Italian film about terrorism (Good Morning, Night (Buongiorno, notte)) that uses a Pink Floyd-related song too heavy-handedly on the soundtrack (here a cover of "Perfect Sense, Part 1" from Roger Waters's Amused to Death).

In the South of Palestine, the idealistic Professor Mohammad (Mohammed Bakri) is a family man that lives with his wife and five children a simple life in an isolated house. His wife Samia (Areen Omari) wants to leave Palestine but her husband refuses to emigrate to another country and become a refugee. One night, Israeli soldiers commanded by the paranoid Commander Ofer (Lior Miller) break in their house and the peaceful Mohammad needs to control his family that wants to react against the Israeli aggression.

"Private" is a heartbreaking and dramatic story about a Palestinian that has their home, that is supposed to be the safest and the most sacred place of a family, invaded by Israeli soldiers that threaten and humiliate them. The direction and performances are top-notch and the film gives the sensation of documentary. The abusive relationship of the Israeli soldiers with the Palestinian family is very similar to the Nazis and Jews in World War II, Serbs and Croats in the Yugoslav Wars or American and Iraqis in the recent invasion and happens since the very beginning of mankind history between who is in control and who is controlled by the Power that Be. Sad, but it is the reality. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Violação de Domicílio" ("Home Violation")

This film does not enlighten viewers to the conflict... it is generic anti-Isreali drivel. The house is an obvious metaphor for the region and the Israelis, of course, are played as the brutish unsympathetic occupiers pushing the poor Palestinians out of their home. The Palestinian family members, with their differing views, are obviously meant to represent the various Palestinian viewpoints. We get it. The metaphor is as subtle as a hammer blow to the head.

This is just more pro Palestinian revisionist history propaganda. Most pro Palestinians either just hate Israel or got their history from the internet. Thinking you are informed on an issue is a lot easier that taking the time and effort to really be informed, as in researching all sides.

It's funny in a sad way that most films that claim to show an even handed view of a conflict always seem to be biased in one way or another.

Some might argue that this movie rides on the rise of the documentary movies. And while this movie is shot like one, it is very clear that it ain't a documentary. That leads to the question, how real the situations depicted in the movie are? While I can't tell you that, neither can anyone else talk about the situation, if he/she hasn't lived it.

Back to the "reality" of the movie. Although we know that actors play a written scenario, this movie feels more real to me than any reality show on TV (not that I watch them)! Having said that and not wanting to spoil to much of the story, I'll only say that I was impressed with the actors (although I don't think all were professionals).

Especially the guy who played the father. The story really grabbed me and I was amazed by little things. Things that in the western World you'd take for granted, but clearly they're not. At least not for everybody in this world ...

It's not a movie that'll "entertain" you in a funny way, but it might make you think about some things in a different light.