A História de Hanna

I'm sorry to disagree because I really love the story and the heroine. The movie tells a spectacular story. It's hard to make a movie as good as the story of Hannah Senesh, so it is understandable that it falls a bit short. It is worth watching and could be a good tool to teach children with. There is a scene or two of brutality but the honor of this young paratrooper, a model for feminism decades before there was such a thing as politically correct, comes through despite the failings of the director and writers.

As a another reviewer states Hanna's War is an outstanding film about an outstanding person, Hanna "Anniko" Senesh, who would become the Jewish Joan Of Arc. Unfortunately I diverge in opinion not agreeing that Miss Detmers as the lead is too beautiful to be taken seriously as a resistance fighter. In truth for me her performance is not held back by her beauty but makes it all the more stark in the terror of the sadistic brutality as a resistor she faces. Maruschka Detmers performance is brave, poignant, heartfelt or understood, and totally believable. In other words for me "In the zone." from the opening credits. If you would like to learn about the suffering of someone else for something they believe in and be impressively entertained give Hanna's War with Maruschka Detmers a try. My hat is off also to Ellen Burstyn as Hanna's mother a much well known and famous actress who could have made effort to walk off with the film. In that it is a team effort perhaps of two actress' but not an All About Eve situation.

Schlockmeister Menahem Golan must have been real passionate about this project, because he not only produced the movie, he directed and co-wrote the screenplay. However, I am pretty sure the movie would have been a lot better had he simply stuck to producing. Although the movie runs about 150 minutes, in all that time I never got a good idea why Golan felt the central character had a story worth telling. She's just shown in one guerrilla mission before getting captured and spending about half of the running time in jail. Plus, the movie never gets into the head of this character, revealing what she really feels and thinks. It doesn't help that the musical score is awful, an electronic score that at times sounds like it's ripping off the song "What A Feeling" from the movie FLASHDANCE! I guess the movie looks okay for a limited budget, but acceptable production values will only take you so far.

Hanna's War is the true story of Hanna Senesh, a Hungarian-Jewish WW2 resistance fighter, who would become Israel's "Joan of Arc. As a young person, she fled Nazi-occupied Hungary for Palestine, where she was recruited and trained by the British to serve as a commando.

After completing her training in Britain, she parachutes into Yugoslavia with a commando team to establish escape routes across the Hungarian-Yugoslavian border for downed British pilots. Her attempts to save Hungarian Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary, however, leads to her capture, torture and demise at the hands of the Gestapo and the Nazi-controlled Hungarian police.

The movie is based on the "The Diaries Of Hanna Senesh" and the book, A Great Wind Cometh, by Yoel Palgi. The scenes of Hanna being sadistically brutalized by the Gestapo and the Nazi-Hungarians is absolutely heart-wrenching and difficult to watch. Think of a cross between Joan of Arc and William Wallace of "Braveheart," and you have Hanna Senesh.

Maruschka Detmers renders an outstanding portrayal in this movie, although she is a little bit too pretty to come across convincingly as a resistance fighter and martyr.

This is one of the best war movies I've seen. This movie shows how much some people had to fight for their people during the war. Good movie to watch.

-MICHAL