Original Title: כיפור (Kippur)
Year: 2000
Country: Israel/France
Language: Hebrew
Number: 967
Director: Amos Gitai
Starring: Liron Levo, Tomer Russo, Uri Klauzner, Yoram Hattab
In 1973, during Yom Kippur, the holiest and most solemn holiday in the jewish fate, Israel was surprisingly attacked by the arabs on two fronts, by Egypt and Syria. The director Amos Gitai himself was called up for the war, as part of a helicopter rescue crew, who had the job of caring injured soldiers to the helicopters, and it's exactly what Kippur is about. It all begins with two friends, from the same platoon who first tries to find the rest of their platoon, but they have disappeared. And the two friends decides to volunteer as helicopter medics in the Golan Heights.
There some people who might call Kippur the Israeli Platoon or Saving Private Ryan. I would rather call it the Israeli M*A*S*H, with out the humor of corse. There's no gunfight, and the soldiers don't seems to be in any danger. It doesn't look like any of those films. Kippur is rather the kind big budget film that's play it very safe and unoriginal made. A desperate attempt to make their sole war epic. The acting is also over the top, and is not believable. It ironically also tries to be an art film, by having an opening scene where we see two people making love on a white sheet, covered in nothing but oil paint in all colors. Another desperate attempt of winning our attention, by trow in art. It's practically forced on us, and practically the whole movie as well.
But I also have something good to say about this movie. There's very few handhold camera scenes, and those are the once that is amazing, to bad is to few of them, or else this movie would have felled more authentic, like being at the battlefield yourself. And there also some amazing air photos from the helicopter. The film also contains some monologues from some of the soldiers, who tells about who they are, or some events before the war that had some impacts on their life. And those are usually good, It's actually something that is typical with the Israeli war movies, such as Waltz with Bashir and Lebanon, with is actually much better than this one, unlike Kippur, they actually have a point, and is not desperately trying to seek attention by dress up like an art film. My conclusion is that Kippur could been a good movie, if they haven't taken it so serious, and started to experimenting much more, instead of trowing a big budged and do nothing more that conclude this movie with an art scene that give us the illusion that it's symbolize something. The problem is, it's symbolizing symbolism. I had great expectations for this film, and I somehow wish I could say I liked it, because of it's message. But when art and the technical come in the way, and force us to watch, I feel like I'm being forced to buy it.
Grade: C-
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