david.bober

I saw this documentary in a preview screening and saw Claude Lanzmann interviewed after the screening. IMO this is an engaging documentary by an engaging film-maker. The subject matter is absorbing and well-presented, without the hyperbole common in television news reporting. The New York Times described the film as a "ruminative, epic-length examination of the Israeli Army and what it demonstrates about Israel's national identity". The documentary includes interviews with Arik Sharon and Ehud Barak. contains fascinating insight into the minds of senior Israeli military officers (for current operations circa 1994), and offers their historical insight into previous IDF operations. This film really should be made available on DVD - not just for its engaging subject matter, but for its contribution to the documentary medium.

This is a truly dreadful movie.

We have the usual hack performance from Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton could not act her way out of kindergarten drama school, and Warren Beatty wanders through the movie looking like somebody just smacked him on the back of the head with a length of two-by-four.

The script is excretable. The politics are patronizingly didactic. The supposed romantic tensions are fourth-rate melodrama.

Visit your local bookstore and pickup a copy of Reed's book instead. Judge the author on his own words, not on the abortion that Beatty has delivered.

This film is available on video - I saw it as such during the early 90s. By way of brief synopsis, a group of sailors from Kronstadt rally to the Bolshevik cause and enlist to fight as naval infantry in the Civil War. After a few scraps they are captured, and would rather be driven at bayonet-point over the edge of a cliff than submit to the Whites.

If you are looking for other films in this genre, I would suggest 'Chapeyev'.