O Jerusalem (2007)

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The subject of this film is difficult, a friendship and a war that comes in between friends. I would have given it a 9 but the propaganda in the film brings it down big time. This is not a historical film but it appears that some key dates have been followed.Why do I call it a propaganda film? Because, it shows good and bad on both sides but actually it subtly forces the viewer to sympathise with one side. This is the art of propaganda. Also called brainwashing which keeps happening again and again. It feels that we will see many more propaganda films in the future. Also, the Brits got the wrong end of the stick, which is almost funny.The two main characters, Bobby and Said are very likable as they appear as very genuine blokes. Their friendship is a real pleasure to watch, shame it was used to cover up the real agenda.

I first saw the trailer for this film some five or six years ago and then never heard of it again, which was a shame because I was really looking forward to seeing it on a big screen, shame then that it all but vanished and hasn't to the best of my knowledge ever had a proper release on UK shores. (I imported the DVD)Though as quoted by others, this is based on the book of the same name, it only draws on the factual detail and uses the more human stories for its focus which for a drama dealing with an issue as complex and as controversial as the formation of the state of Israel is essential. Set against the backdrop of the events of 1946 in Palestine and the violence that followed, two friends who meet in America, one Arab and one Jewish find themselves on opposing sides of a conflict that is beyond their own making. Both of them realising that violence is not the solution do their best to stay out of it, but ultimately find this unavoidable.The film focuses on their attempts to understand and deal with the historical events that they face, of which they little control over but have no choice but to get involved in. The film has its strong points. The historical attention to period detail is very well done, the budget for this production is NOT low, as another reviewer has stated (factually inaccurate) nor does it look so. The blend of actual news footage from the time slips seamlessly with the way the film has been shot and invokes a feeling of genuine history. Points of history are sign posted with titles and everything is told neatly in chronological order. Where the film is weaker however is the script. The friendship of the two friends feels rushed and unlikely, the acting is variable, some scenes are handled well while others feel the need to rush straight into melodrama without any real emotional investment to get there. On that level it feels more like a drama documentary where a mini-series would probably have served it better. Our main characters seem to just flow along with the story as the historical events unfold, rather than really being fully involved in them, maybe that's the point, but the strength of their emotional journey gets lost. The death of several supporting characters never seems to have the impact that it should and its hard to pin down the exact reason for this, but the scene at the end falls especially flat when it should have had me in tears. Those criticisms aside this doesn't mean the film makes for uninteresting viewing. I have no personal affiliation to any side of this conflict, and the film seemed initially to strive to give both sides an equal voice, (Possibly Israel gets more screen time but their own atrocities in the conflict are not overlooked) certainly at first I didn't feel a bias one way or another, but after the first half it felt the Jewish characters became more and more noble where as the Arabs became more and more one dimensional but this just makes me want to do my own research on the subject, but does it make for a good movie?The high production values, good acting despite struggling with a fairly orderly historical script, attention to detail and nice photography all make the film well above average. Nice turns from supporting cast such as Tom Conti, the under rated Rene Zagger and the ever strong Ian Holm give the leading cast great back up and Saïd Taghmaoui is always very watchable but their talents do make some of the weaker players stand out a little. A film on this topic is going to stir emotions on anyone who might have an affiliation with one side or another, so maybe its more important what those who have little understanding of the origins of this seemingly never ending conflict gain some understanding of how it started and as a starting point for that education, you can certainly do far far worse than this. As a well made historical epic its not a bad film at all. Unfortunately where the film is less convincing is in the conflict between the friendship of the two leads, I found it unrealistic and somewhat unbelievable and didn't quite create the dichotomy I had hoped for but simply watching the events of history unfold still made for captivating viewing.This is a conflict I would love to see finally resolved in my life time for the sake of the generations that will follow in the footsteps of their relatives who were involved in these events. Dismissing the film so easily is simply not a tenable opinion.There aren't enough films on this subject to make this one irrelevant and the simple truth is that no film on this topic will ever be completely successful, just as the search for an answer to finally allow all those involved to live side by side in harmony will go on for some time yet. If you have even the vaguest interest in the subject and can watch it from a neutral stand point, I would recommend it.

My major gripe is not the slant, the film was not a propaganda screed for either side, but it is so inaccurate as to be nearly worthless. First, any one who spent any time in Israel will note immediately that it was not filmed there, the scenes do not remotely resemble the real sites where the events of 1948 took place. Major facts are fumbled--e.g., the Jewish Quarter of the Old City fell long before the first cease-fire (from the movie, it is hard to tell exactly what happened). In another scene, right before the Partition vote travelers are shown on a modern-style glass bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem--going over a non-existent river--with Arabs and Jews on the same bus! The acting is TV-grade melodrama and the script is trite.As for the overview-historical content, the movie falls to illuminate the events the lead up to the conflict--and with the single exception of the depiction of Deir Yassin, makes it seem as though the war was fought between a handful of well-meaning nice guys. But the 1948 war was bloody and ugly, with many atrocities committed on both sides, but especially the Arab side that was trying to wipe out the Jewish community of Palestine (later Israel).Finally, as already pointed out, this movie does horrible violence to LaPierre and Collins' fine book, one of the few truly even-handed non-fiction books written about the Arab-Israel conflict (In the trailer, even this was mangled as the book is called a "novel"). If any one wants to see a much better movie covering almost the exact same topic get "Cast a Giant Shadow."

We had expected that film for decades and we finally get it. The absolute irresponsibility of the English in Palestine, the horrendous tragedy of nazism symbolized by the concentration camps as the final solution to the Jewish problem, the extreme barbarity of the extremist Jewish groups, the naive complacent blindness of many on both sides, these are the main reasons why the creation of Israel was more tragic than it should have been. Instead of a multicultural and multi-ethnic state, Isarel was founded as a Jewish state, that is to say a state whose definition was purely religious. For millenia the Jews and the Arabs had lived in normal peaceful relations, except when the Christians decided to come and crusade around in the Middle East, but suddenly the absolute absurdity of the international community was to find the berserk compromise of splitting Jerusalem in two, as a collateral decision of the creation of a Jewish state. Since 1948 the situation has little changed and it is war after war, a quasi permanent state of war. The film is admirable because it follows the historical situation through the eyes of a few young people who knew and loved one another deeply before coming to Palestine, in fact in New York, one Arab, three Jews and one Christian. It thus becomes the story of the uprooting of these friendships and loves, the impossible uprooting that dramatizes every step in this struggle, on both the Jewish and the Arab sides, and makes it become little by little more and more cosmic in the emotional intensity it assumes day after day, night after night. To marry the woman you love in the very last five minutes of her life erases any religious dimension in the ceremony that only becomes the mark of the deepest suffering of all : the suffering of a hope that seems to glide away with a sneer from your grip, especially when one of the witnesses of this Jewish wedding is the Arab friend of the two aspiring husband and wife and the son of the leader of the Arab community who was killed in the fight by the very bridegroom. This is a rewriting of the impossible love of so many tragedies, and first of all Romeo and Juliet, but in such a different context that it becomes a divine surprise that can easily lead to the rebirth of the hope that may have died in the meantime, but a hope that lives and strives in our own minds that one day soon Jerusalem will finally no longer be cut by a wall, that one day Palestine will be one again, in a way or another, for both the Jews and the Arabs, equal in dignity, equal in history, equal in faith and equal in love. When will dates be shared again and the agenda of Palestine be moving along one unified line. Here is the film we had all hoped would come one day like the prophet announcing the real Second Coming of peace on this earth for all the children of the only and yet multiple, or even absolutely non-religious, God of all men and women of good faith and quivering heart. We know it should be soon, but how soon we don't know. Suffering has been bad enough for it to stop now, at once, instantly, immediately. That is at least my deepest wish because we all have to love the Jews and the Arabs as our direct soul-brothers. But there are so many bitter intentions among us that love may wither away and eventually even die.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne