Kippur

Those here who have bashed the film have grossly misunderstood Kippur. Either they look for a blow-blam-bang Holy-wood flick, which it isn't; or for a highly reliable reconstruction (which Save Private Ryan, extolled by some, is only in part: the first scene is almost like-it-really-was, the last scene is blow-blam-bang with Matt Damon and Tom Hanks instead of Chuck Norris and Steven Seagal). Kippur is a highly personal film, in that war is filtered through the very personal point of view of a sophisticated director. Amos Gitai is close to Antonioni; and in directing a war movie he couldn't forget the Lesson of the Master. Hence the minimal dialogue, hence the dilated times, hence the attention to the setting more than the characters. You try to watch Deserto rosso and then Kippur and you'll notice just how much they have in common. Then, if you don't like Antonioni, it's your own business, go for the blow-blam-bang stuff. However, as for action movies, I think Black Hawk Down is better than SPR. I may be wrong...

"Two characters making love sopping in paint on Yom Kippur while everyone else takes part in religious activities. You don't get much more sac-religious than this. So we know this is not a propaganda film."

Except that any film, pro or anti war, can be a propaganda film, sacrilegious or not. Also, to be a great anti-war film, a film needs to be watched and needs to draw viewers to it. This film does not do that. However the director meant the film, I simply saw it as a auto-biographical film about his own life during the Y.K war and not a particularly effective one at that.

Kippur (2000) Directed by Amos Gitai Starring: Liron Levo, Tomer Russo, Uri Klausner, Yoram Hattab, and Guy Amir ***1/2 out of 5 stars

Forgive me if I see the good in everything, but I believe that this Israel film, which features excruciatingly long takes and little dialogue, DOES have some deep significance. However, the long takes ARE draining, yet when you realize the purpose, it all seems to make sense.

Based on Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai's personal experiences in the Yom Kippur war in 1973, in which Egyptian and Syrian forces attacked Israel on their holy day of Yom Kippur, "Kippur" follows a search and rescue team of four people as they travel by helicopter to different war-torn areas to find as many people alive as possible and bring them to some sort of safety and medical treatment. The film begins with two characters, Ruso (Yes, Russo) and Weinraub (Levo), who find themselves abruptly trying to get into a war. One of the characters (Ruso, I believe) is eager to get to the battlefront, proclaiming that a war has finally reached their generation and that "it is ours!". You must understand that Israel has been going through a war at least once, if not twice a decade. So, war, to the naive, inexperience individual, seems like a rite of passage.

Ruso and Weinraub, after awkwardly entering the front lines and being told to go back as shells are heard closeby, stop on the side and meet up with Gadassi (Amir), a medical officer trying to find a ride to the mission briefing. When they finally get to the battlefield to start the search and rescue, you soon find out that the film is about the death, detachment, and irrationality of war. What began as a rite of passage for the characters ended up being a strange, tortured nightmare. They go from area to area finding amputees and dead soldiers, usually unable to help all and having to leave much of the bodies on the battlefield. One torturous take follows the four characters as they try to help a soldier, who is hurt and obviously alive, out of a big field of mud. As they fall and slip, the soldier's body is thrown around, unintentionally carelessly. The frustration takes over one of the soldiers helping him as he breaks down in the middle of the mud and the doctor is going back and forth trying to calm the panicking soldier and help the injured one. When they finally make it to some other officers waiting for them to take the soldier away, he is already dead and the helplessness on the soldier's muddy faces says it all.

This film can be and will be very draining for most viewers. The long takes and the often far away framing distances ourselves from the action and you should soon learn to explore and examine what Gitai is trying to convey through the characters' stories. The film DOES build up to a briefly explosive climax, which poetically brings everything full circle for the soldiers. "Kippur" is a difficult film appropriate for its difficult subject. It is also daring, unwavering in its message, and, most importantly, truthful to the nonsense that war really is.

This is being a pretty good and different war movie but it does start loosing some of its power after a while, once the movie starts repeating itself, over and over again.

I always enjoy watching movies, concerning history, which I don't know all that much about already. This is a movie centered around the Yom Kippur War and tells the movie entirely from the perspective of a rescue crew. This means that the movie itself isn't focusing on the fighting but more on its aftermath. This is an interesting approach for a war movie to take and of course also works effective as an anti-war movie.

Well, mostly effective, since the movie does start to wear out after a while. It seems that there is only so much you could do with this concept, before you start repeating stuff. Half way through I was waiting for the movie to take a different turn or do something unexpected or original. It doesn't do any of this really, which did left me a bit disappointed, especially since I was quite liking the movie at first.

It still remains a very well made movie. Visually there is very little wrong with this movie and it gives a pretty realistic and detailed view of a battlefield. Even though you'll hardly see any fighting in this movie, it does indeed feels like a true war movie, that obviously cost some bit of money to make.

Also because of its subject and its approach, this still remains a good watch but it's just not as effective as it potential could and perhaps also should had been.

7/10

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The Yom Kippur war almost caught Israel unawares. Twenty days later they were across the Suez 100km from Cairo and near as many from Damascus, another disaster for the Arabs. In a strange turn of events however, the surprise attack and doom-laden buildup to it, with thousands of graves dug in anticipation, had a devastating effect on the country, in effect signaling a perpetual state of fear and alert.

I am in the middle of exploring through films these bumps in the national mind, which brought me here. For what it's worth, the filmmaker has decided to capture an experience of war as purely about what it means to be there as he can. He knows, he was there.

Sadly, it's flat beyond belief. For better or worse I found it to be nothing like Thin Red Line, as others have mentioned in their comments. Whereas Malick spins war to be one of conflicting urges in the soul, this is what we see, two hours of med- evacs carrying the wounded.

There's one contemplative image in the film, a helo shot of a muddy battlefield with maneuvering tanks drawing meaningless patterns on the mud, contrasted with the early shot of the lush mingling of painted sex evocative of life, color, imagination, spontaneity. It's a great shot, and perfectly describes both what the film wants to portray, a sort of aimless cosmos, and what it ends up with—aimless doodling on the ground.

So the filmmaker reminisces in film about a time and place that allowed no skyward gaze. The important message is that war is as wasteful and pointless to happen in real life as it is to watch in this film.