We really enjoyed "Footnote" (Hearat Shulayim) This unique and unusual film is beautifully performed by the very talented cast. Special kudos for the excellent screenplay which won the prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
Yet another wonderful Israeli film - congratulations to Joseph Cedar and the talented cast and crew.
I agree, but had some minor reservations. Some of the scenes could have been edited better, for dramatic purposes (the one in the Ministry of Education come to mind - it peaked too soon, before it peaked again). Another scene (the one which led to the fencing suit) wasn't necessary, and didn't work.
But I loved the use of Jerusalem locations, and the film was excellent in creating the enclosed world in which the characters live.
I want to shake every limb in the Garden of Eden
and make every lover the love of my life
I agree. I’ve seen 80 films in the last couple of months, and Footnote is one of my favourites.
A couple of things I am wondering about (warning: minor spoilers follow): in one scene Uriel is playing squash with his friend and when they get back to the locker room, Uriel's clothes are gone (he says they have been stolen). Did we ever find out who stole the clothes, or what happened to them? I might have missed it, or not sure if that was just never revealed. Also, who was the actor playing Uriel's squash friend? He looked familiar; has he been in American movies or television shows?
Can't wait to see this, but none of the theaters in my area (Los Angeles) are showing it. Anyone know when the DVD will come out? I would even buy the DVD directly from Israel.
shareIt was never revealed. Perhaps they just want us to know that he gets his cellphone stolen, so the comission of the Israel Prize can't reach him and that thing we know happens...
shareThe whole point of that scene was to explain why he doesn't have his cell phone, thus never gets the call from the education ministry. But it was very contrived. There could easily have been another way for his phone not to be working.
shareThought the topic very interesting, but was disappointed by a number of things.
Too many scenes go nowhere. A big deal is made over his stolen clothing with almost no point. Then there is the storyline of the affair the father may or may not be having which goes nowhere and is dropped. The argument between the younger man and his wife is stupid and unrealistic in that the wife is arguing for him to go and have an affair as well as pointless as it leads nowhere. The son's hiking trip leads nowhere. If these things are going to be in the film they should either inform the story or be mini-stories of their own; otherwise just excise them completely. Probably the entire family of the younger man don't really need to be in the film. During the performance of Fiddler on the Roof the son tells the mother the secret; this comes to nothing as well.
There is way too much boring time spent watching characters walking into buildings, out of buildings, standing up, sitting down, etc. Should stay with the main idea and get off these pointless banalities.
The exposition rips off Amelie heavily and for not much effect. It could have been done just as well more conventionally.
The camera lingers way too much on the Grossman character's wrinkled head. The editor needs to know when a good thing is too much.
But the committee meeting in the middle of the picture is the center of the film and its greatest moment. It's both comedic and dramatic. In the cinema the people around us had been making noise with their popcorn and candy and being restless in their chairs, but during that scene there was total silence. Everyone was rapt with attention about what would happen. This one scene in many ways is what really makes the film.
Otherwise the problem is that this is a situation, granted an interesting one, but only a situation, not a story, which should have a beginning, middle and end, and one in which we explore the feelings of the characters, which here we often fail to truly do and with no real point.
Where's your crew?
On the 3rd planet.
There IS no 3rd planet!
Don't you think I know that?
excellent review. i agree wid everthin u sed.
i tell u, i wuz bout 2 walk out be4 da committee meetin but it wuz dat scene dat made me stay. da only interestin scene and reminded me a lil bout 12 angry men. of course, rite after dat scene, i then proceed 2 walk out.
I live, I love, I slay, and I'm content
i did the same mikey
sharei think you may have walked out of one too many English classes in school.
presumably you're an adult, so why not try speaking/typing like one?
Rheli, you've expressed my sentiments exactly! The trailer for the film is misleading. You are lead to believe that this will be a comedy. It is not. It is very serious, with the main character breaking into a smile only once. The committee meeting was one of the best parts of the film and captured the ego battles that go on in the world of academia.
share*SPOILERS*
Uriel's cell didnt matter, like they said in the crowded meeting, the first call went to the university and when "Prof Shkolnik" wasnt in, the wrong cell # wasn given - so whether his clothes were stolen or not, the call never came to that cell
I think that was just the first of several threads planted which never resolve which are miniature allusions to how the film will end (think abt the woman on the bench and the registered letter hidden in Uriel's office - both are typical plot points we are conditioned to want a payoff for, and this film doesnt give them)
I thought the ending was really great in that we want Eliezer to show off and ruin Grossman (whose forehead was fascinating! Great editing I thought: you never see a texture like that in a film; I wanted to knead it!) and prove his textual analysis superior to the mainstream scholarship which has eclipsed him - but we have hints that he may have had a change of heart: the wristband, the new shoes - and think about the first scene and Uriel's whitewashing of the form story, is that a hollow fiction Eliezer is too scientific for or did the son get that from his dad somehow?
Also I loved this film's use of subjective sound w/ the breathing and tuning out of voices, and Yuval Scharf as Noa is a very beautiful actor.
Great film! One of the best I've seen in a while