Une histoire d'amour et de ténèbres

I have not read the book upon which the film was based, so my comments are purely on the film. Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes in I was thinking, okay, what's going on here? Why should I care about this story and these characters? As I continued to watch my caring about the characters and their story increased, until, by the end, I was very moved and cared deeply.

At some point beyond halfway, I thought the greatest feat here is the creation of mood, not only of the characters but of the whole world presented in the film, and then, transferred to me, by virtue of my watching and listening to it. It's a visual and auditory feast.

A lot happens in this film, both personally and historically, but ultimately what I was left with was a sense of a man recalling his childhood and the emotion that he carried with him through his life. As other reviewers have indicated, it's a poetic film, and I wound up absorbing it the way I might a poem. And in that way, it worked beautifully.

I had read the book when it was first published, and I felt it was a masterpiece. Oz captured the dark and difficult yet hopeful period of Jewish and Israeli history so well - from the siege on Jerusalem, to relations with Palestenians, to the impact of uprooted Eastern European Jewish survivors' lives. He also let us into the secrets of his childhood. It is a profound book.

Of course to turn this long and complex tale into a movie is very challenging, and especially as a directorial debut. However, I felt that Natalie Portman and her team captured the essence of the book. The period scenes, the choice of important segments of the book, the characters - it felt familiar to me, true to the book.

I'm sorry to read in a couple reviews that the historical references did not register. I personally feel that she did justice to the period, the place and the story. Yes, it was dark for the most part. Because Amos Oz remembered his childhood as dark, because of the times, the atmosphere in the home (his parents were mismatched), the poverty and the fear. And mostly because of his mother's falling into illness. In the book Oz never mentioned a diagnosis, but it was clear, and made clear in the movie as well, that she was clinically depressed, and no treatment was available. One of the parts I liked the best in the movie, was the sporadic appearance of the "new Jew" prototype, which she adored, and which her husband did not fit in the least. The handsome, strong man, the antithesis of the Eastern European Jewish nerdy and scholarly type. What she did with this mythic male at the end of the movie was brilliant, and the narrator also tells us that he himself tried to become this man, and couldn't. Maybe the viewers need to read some background before watching the film, but I felt justice was done to the book and to the spirit of it. Those who dismiss the linguistic aspects need to realize that the new and forming language, Hebrew, and the father and son's interests in life, are tied together, and represent a very important part of the story. That is probably why Natalie Portman insisted on the movie being in Hebrew. Will she adapt it into an English version? Maybe.

Greetings again from the darkness. The establishment of the state of Israel and the memoir of Amos Oz are the foundation of the feature film directorial debut of Natalie Portman. First time directors don't typically fight over such source material, but it has always seemed that Ms. Portman was headed towards bigger (and more important) things.

She was born in Jerusalem and this story opens in that city during 1945. The narrator is the elderly Amos and the story is told through the eyes of young Amos (a very effective Amir Tessler) … though the focus is on his mother Fania (played by Ms. Portman).

The tensions between Jews and Arabs are ever-present, but this is the mostly personal and intimate struggle of Fania and her family. She has survived the atrocities of the Holocaust, though many of her family and friends did not. In fact, her inability to overcome this past and adjust to the new world is what has the biggest impact on young Amos and his scholarly father Arieh (Gilad Kahana). Amos soon figures out that the litmus test for his mother's mood is whether she is telling stories of the old days, or staring blankly into a void.

Watching someone fade away and experience death by depression/disappointment/unfulfilled dreams goes so against what we typically see on screen – the emotionally strong and heroic types. Portman's performance makes it believable, but no less difficult to watch … for us or young Amos.

The film is well shot and well acted, and much more is conveyed through faces and movement than spoken words … somewhat unusual for the recollections of a writer. The color palette and the silence dominate many scenes, and it seems appropriate given the situation of this family. Expect to see many more projects from director Portman, as she obviously has much to say.

This is a beautifully made film.Its slow pace at times matches with integrity the focus chosen by Portman, one of many interpretive avenues that could be pursued. I find it idiotic for critics to keep saying that "it's not like the book"or describe it as "dreary". I see it as a marvelous visual transcription, its development towards the end seemingly as inevitable as the last movement of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony. Portman recreated an entire era,offered original visual interpretations and the casting ( including her own acting) is memorable. I feel very lucky to have seen this movie before reading the book. I feel I can comprehend the movie on its own merits,and it will augment my appreciation of the book. It will be remembered as one of the best Israeli films based on great literature. An extraordinary debut for Natalie Portman.

I wanted to like this. I really did. Natalie Portman's directorial debut taking on an epic Amos Oz novel about his early life set against the tale of the birth of the State of Israel should have been wonderful. Instead, it felt like a series of beautiful cinematic vignettes that didn't quite come together to form a cohesive narrative. The dramatic tension is missing. The motivations of Oz and his mother and father are not explained. A couple of political scenes inserted to give some context -- namely the scene with the Arab girl and her brother, and the scene where the UN vote is being read out -- feel clunky and not well linked to the more personal story being told. If I hadn't come into the movie already having a good grasp of the history of mandatory Palestine and Israel's early years, I feel I would have been totally lost, as so much was glossed over or not really explored. Moreover, the most interesting parts to me were those that explored Amos's relationship with his father, but Portman chose to focus the narrative on his enigmatic, struggling mother -- someone you get the sense that the boy himself never really understood. There are a lot of wonderful scenes here, but they don't really go anywhere. Haval.