I totally agree with the two previous comments. I wanted to give this movie a 7 because the subject is very touching, very soulful and the whole story is inspiring. It changes from all the crap we see on the screen. BUT, alas, there are a lot of imperfections that one should not forget if one wants to be really impartial.
-When the actors are speaking Hebrew, I couldn't say if they were good or not as I don't speak the language. I assumed they were. But when they spoke French, being a french native speaker, I realized how bad they were. The dialog is not bad but they simply render it very poorly. It sounds almost amateurish (Schlomo, his father, his grandfather were the worst, the mother was slightly better).
-The music is appropriate but my wife and I thought it was over used at the beginning and throughout the movie. We definitely felt that the movie was going to be a weeper in the first minutes, which is fine, but when the soundtrack didn't fade away and continued for the first 15mn, tears were dry.
-The photography could have been better. The kid is so beautiful and Israel is such a beautiful country; we could have seen better shots of the characters and their environment if the director of photography had been more talented. There was never the magic that I saw in, let's say, Slumdog Millionaire, when for example the kids are taking a shower outside in the slums and we have close shots of their smiles, or when they're sleeping in a shack, it's raining and they invite the girl to join them in their shelter.
-2hours 20mn was a bit long. I like 3hour movies but it has to be done by an expert. The longer it is, the better must be the director. It's much tougher to keep the attention of the viewers. I think there could have been some cuts here and there.
-For all this flaws, I cannot give a point to the direction. He could have done better.
I give four points for the story, the depth of the matter, the production and the dialogue. 4/10 is pretty low unfortunately, I would have liked to be generous but if one wants to be fair...
reply
share
hellblade
13 years ago
Suffice to say that I could not disagree more with everything you said.
reply
share