Terra promessa

This was an incredibly important subject...treated in an amateurish, arrogant way. The director expected the audience to understand what was going on...this was impossible: there was no plot, no script to "speak" of, no plot points, no character development, no story development. It was filmed in a shaky documentary style (which is valid if you have something to say). I was always taught that any narrative, be it a movie, book, play, even a piece of music, has to have a beginning, a middle and an end - this dreadful excuse for a movie had a beginning...and then it waffled for the next hour or so until the woman we sort of guessed was the heroine, ran off into the night. Let's be specific: The opening sequence wasn't that bad - very evocative scenes in the dessert, camels, Bedouin, a group of Eastern European women, a campfire, lots of Russian and Arabic chit chat - OK, "expectations build": Next scene (after the first obligatory rape scene): auction of the Eastern European women as prostitutes: very noisy, not sure who the English-speaking (French-accented) person was - a buyer or a seller: couldn't make that out. A van drives by with two people in the back (man/woman) staring out at the auction...who are they, why are they there? Nobody knows. Next scene: in a nightclub (after the "hosing down" of the prostitutes - a highly contrived scene, calculated to make us think of Holocaust victims in the showers - come on Amos, what are you really trying to say? The woman from the van (we eventually learn her name is Rose - Rosamund Pike) which was driving around the auction and her boyfriend (is he her boyfriend?) arrive at the nightclub, one of the prostitutes asks her for help. Rose is totally confused: "What, how, why - I can't help you...why me?" she says indicating that she doesn't even understand the cry for help. Next scene, Rose and her boyfriend (?) are in the passenger compartment of a van with ALL THE PROSTITUTES IN THE BACK! Hello...! What's going on here? She couldn't (or wouldn't) help the prostitute escape, why is she in the van with them? Contrived gratuitous sex scene with Rose and her boyfriend (?). Next scene, the van arrives in a grimy industrial area, unloads the prostitutes at what is apparently a brothel ("The Promised Land" of the title) - and lo and behold, Rose the mystery woman gets out with them and enters the brothel: where's her boyfriend? Dunno... Why is she there with them? Dunno...She and the "heroine" - the prostitute who begged her for help in the nightclub - sit huddled together listening to the driving rain (it wasn't raining when they entered the brothel), talking as if they were old friends. Flashback, to Estonia, the prostitute is a virginal choir girl, singing about the "Peace of Jerusalem" (in English mind you), pure driven snow outside (another "message") and suddenly Rose appears: OK now I'm totally lost. Then the audience is jerked back to the present with a terrorist attack on the brothel - why? There's nobody around, the only people there (apparently) are whores and their johns...upstairs - why a terrorist attack here? Everybody runs outside, the prostitute who asked for help and Rose escape in the confusion and run off into the night. Close. ..and this won a prize at the Venice Film Festival!!!!??? It wouldn't win a passing grade in a student film contest. It's clearly a case of the Emperor's New Clothes: this has to be the most self-indulgent so-called movie ever to grace the screen: even "Plan 9 from Outer Space" had some quirky charm... Sorry Amos - not even an "E" for effort.

There should be many movies about this topic so that the powers that be actually start to do something about trafficking. But films like this are not the solution.

The film is clearly shot on a budget, mostly on handheld cameras and without much, if anything, of a script or indeed, a plot.

Many scenes are extended to ridiculous length for no good reason except to pad out the run time.

The direction is awful, as is the screenplay, acting, editing and cinematography. It would be possible to re edit this film from its 88 minutes to about a half hour and still get the same level of drama.

I thought with Rosamund Pike and Anne Perrillaud that it might be worth a watch. I was wrong.

Very strong, violent and depressing well made movie on vicious business of prostitution and slavery. Simple and very tough. Not charming. The bad People who do that with other people come from everywhere. One of the best films from Israeli diretor Amos Gitai.

This film is a major disappointment by Amos Gitai.One should even call it a blot on his career.Promised land is neither a feature film nor a documentary nor anything which can lie in between.It features two popular stars Anne Parillaud and Hanna Schygulla but even their presence is not helpful enough to sustain viewers' interest.The film is about the plight of some Russian girls which are sold in Israel but its presentation is really bad. It does not make any sense as in order to heighten the importance of the topic Amos Gitai has decided to shoot the most part of the film in darkness. However darkness cannot hide the film's defects.The film maker has surely not done his homework well due to which viewers are forced to watch a crude succession of abominably cruel scenes in which women are traded like cattle.Most of the actors too suffer in this film as their roles have not been defined properly.Recommendation:better watch this film and be bitter about it rather than being sullen without having seen it.

Promised Land is one part of the so-called Borders Trilogy that Amos Gitai has crafted, the other two being Free Zone and Disengagement. In this film, he tackles the issue of women trafficking across borders between Egypt and Israel, in which there seems to be no problems, obstacles or conflict between the peoples of both sides engaged in this illegal trade, which still persists, with various filmmakers around the world taking on the issue head on in their respective geographies, in films such as Lilya 4-ever and Your Name is Justine.

This film can be broken down, I believe, into three parts, and on the whole it's like Gitai taking the audience on a journey to witness first hand the ordeal that the female victims are put through. The shaky cam technique helped in putting oneself there in the first person perspective, though it could be somewhat unsettling, as if the perspective and point of view seem to come from being one of the perpetrators of the trade, being able to partake in, yet only standing by like an eyewitness, but unable to reach out and help the girls.

It's not a documentary, but the effect made it look like one, with conversations up close, and plenty of tight shots choosing to disorientate the viewer, just like how the victims are suffering, as they are moved constantly from place to place in hurried fashions, under the blanket of night, trekking across deserts to their final destination, which at the end of the film, you wonder just exactly where you have ended up in. One scene that'll definitely stir some upsetting emotions, is how the women get herded up and inspected like cattle, having their assets exposed and prodded, chided, stripped of their dignity and clothes, while listening to an auction going around them for the best price from the highest bidder. Before that the girls do look as if they're clueless about their impending ordeal, until it's too late.

The second act dealt with an underground club of sorts, which brings the entire film to the one hour mark. Here the girls are prepared, again in quite undignified terms of being hosed down with water to clean themselves, akin to being a prisoner (well actually yes), and the first step toward their sexual slavery, including making up to beautify themselves for their clientèle later. As mentioned, again the audience is put in the spot, standing by to watch but unable to do anything about it. Perhaps yet again we're thrust into the spotlight, because I think the message is clear that should there be no demand, the supply would naturally dry up. I suppose this approach here is like getting people to swear off meat, to varying degrees of success, by having the person witness how meat is being slaughtered and prepared.

Now the third act I believe was pure Gitai genius, though it may irk many to think, that's it? I had very much enjoyed the ending of Free Zone, and this could rival that as being equally powerful. Without giving anything away here, I felt that on one hand the plight of the women were raised, and there doesn't seem to be anything in sight that could rescue them. Then comes that major event that brings us up and about, presenting an opportunity to be grasped and exploited. It isn't impossible of course, given the environment Israel finds itself in from time to time. On the other hand, the Deus Ex Machina approach here may not go down well in being something like a cop out of a finale. But if you dwell on it deeper, it's the honest truth that there's simply no quick and easy solution to have it solved, especially not on film, hence the approach that unless some form of miracle happens, we're not going to see the problem disappear anytime soon.

Promised Land is one long process from beginning to end that hopes to elicit some response from the audience in either raising their awareness of the problem outside of their comfort zones, or for those who are fueling the demand side of things, to perhaps stop and think if they're contributors to a totally inhuman and undignified process. Oh, and fans of Rosamund Pike who might be drawn to the film because of her presence, you're likely to be disappointed as she only as a very limited supporting role in the film.