Le Blues du dernier été

This modest but appealing Israeli feature was a big hit in its native country, and not without good reason: it's a poignant elegy for lost innocence in a nation that forces its children to come of age too quickly. The opening narration clearly spells out the message, introducing a group of friends during their last few weeks together between high school graduation and military service. Their ranks include: an aspiring filmmaker; an equally hopeful songwriter; a left-wing conscientious objector; a young newlywed couple; and a likable, curly-headed klutz, the first to be drafted and the first, naturally, to be killed (but not in battle: a nice irony).

The film captures all the exuberance and awkward idealism of youth with hardly a stereotype in sight, but don't think of it as Tel Aviv Graffiti. Underneath all the familiar coming of age conflicts the story also dramatizes the effects of an unending war on a young generation compelled by duty and circumstance to sacrifice more than just their lives.

A beautiful and sensitively done movie showing the effects of war on everyday life.

The movie deals with the people affected by war, barely if at all touching the idea of war. It doesn't take a stand one way or another if the particular war it refers to is right or wrong, rather it shows with great sensitivity what happens to the innocents affected by it. I recommend this movie very highly.

the movie introduce in a beautiful way a bunch of young kids in their last summer before going into the army in a days of the war of attrition. the movie is a mix of joy and sadness, childhood and maturity. the dilemmas that the bunch is facing are the mirror of those times - from the small ones-to have a graduation party or not, to the big ones - to join or not to join the army and in which unit. the movie brings up a variety of characters - the non conformist whom at the end joins the army because he understands that there is no such privilege, the one that everything works for him, but still he has to make up is mind etc. great music. great great movie.

This movie launched the career of writer/director Renen Schorr, who quickly took his place as an honored figure in Israeli cinema. The same can't be said of most of the young actors he recruited. Shot in the late 1980s, the movie harks back to the early 1970s when anti-war sentiment among draft-age youth was crossing the ocean from the USA into Israel but the Israeli nation, then as now, faced an enemy at closer quarters than the Americans did.

Regarding movies like this one, it was observed that because of the strong communal heritage of Israeli society, the ambition of young Israeli directors is to turn out movies not about a single protagonist's ambitions or problems but about a circle of friends. Such movies don't succeed so well in general among viewers in the more individualistic West. But "Late Summer Blues" is still regarded as a classic in Israel, it went through restoration some years ago, and Renen Schorr returned to it in a filmed memoir. "HaMeorer," where the conflict is not between heartfelt anti-war sentiment and national necessity but between a traditionally pious Jewish life and a life of filmmaking.

It does have its faults, not all the characters are evenly built. Some are super, complete human beings presented on the screen for us to watch others are fleeting images present on the screen only as space fillers. But for me it's the only fault of a very well constructed movie, beautifully shot, beautifully directed, superbly acted by all the leads, and if you do live in Israel and you knew Israel at the time the movie takes place and it still feels real and genuine, it's a huge compliment. On top of that one can see that the director knows what he's doing, things make cinematic sense.

In my private book, this one of my top five films made in Israel ever, though people should know that my top five list could easily include 10 films - I'm not for splitting hairs over silly little details. If a movie is good, most of the rest is insignificant, this one is really good.