KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

ShangLuda Admirable film.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

brchthethird FOOTNOTE is the second Israeli film I've seen and while it felt rather insular in the cultural sense, it did explore some interesting themes and had a great sense of humor. The story is about a father and son, both professors of Talmudic literature. The father has largely been forgotten, his only significant achievement being a mention in a footnote in someone else's book, while his son is more celebrated. However, the dynamic between them changes when the father is selected (errantly) to receive the prestigious Israel Prize for his life's work. One thing the film does really well is explore the sometimes contentious relationship between parent and child. Eliezer (father) and Uriel (son) Shkolnik both have the same profession, yet the son's success in light of the father's failure certainly must have weighed heavily on both of their consciences. And when Eliezer is mistakenly nominated to receive the Israel Prize, his son comes to his defense since it would vindicate the decades of work for which he had previously gone unrecognized. There was also the subtle element of comedy and self-deprecating humor that seems to be part and parcel of the Jewish experience. It wasn't exactly laugh-out-loud hilarious, but there was some excellent situational humor as well as some ribbing on cutthroat competition in academia. Still, given the subject material it was a little hard for me to get into the film completely. The single element which I did connect with was the idea that a parent at some point might give up on their child, as I have had similar fears in the past. The film also had a somewhat unsatisfying ending, although it probably didn't have to show everything in order to be effective. The film was subversive enough without seeing what you know is coming. If there's one actual complaint I have, it's that the score was a little overpowering at times. Sometimes, more is less. Overall, the subject of academia is something that's a little too "inside baseball," particularly when it's about the Talmud (I'm not a Jew), but FOOTNOTE has some interesting themes that allow you a way into this story about a father-son rivalry.

maurice yacowar Joseph Cedar's Footnote (2011) is a very different film than his Beaufort (2007). It's an intimate family drama, often comic, without explicit political reference. Yet both warn audiences against the dangers of the bunker mentality. In the second, set on the home front, the leading characters suffer from the destructive intransigence of their wills. The central figures, the famous Talmudic scholars Eliezer Shkolnik and his son Uriel, and their archenemy Grossman are so firmly set in their righteousness that they cannot countenance the compromises that could lead to justice and to peace of mind.Indeed the film's key word is "fortress." Uriel publicly thanks his father for having made their home a cultural fortress. When Uriel secretly writes the jury's supposed citation for his father's mistaken award, he slips that term in again. That word prompts Eliezer to doubt the validity of his award — and enables him to remember that the cell-phone call informing him of the prize named his son, not him. Eliezer's hunger for the award deafened him to his son's name.The settings support that term. The offices, the library, and especially both scholars' homes are veritable fortresses of books and papers in their case dedicated to the abstruse minutiae of Talmudic studies. They live in a fortress against the realities and obligations outside. In this sense the film may allude to the problematic isolation of Israel's burgeoning Haredim community from the responsibilities of Israeli citizenship. But Uriel is an academic star. On Shavuot eve he pops up all over the city delivering six lectures. Where Eliezer wears yellow headphones to drown out the outside world — i.e., his family — Uriel has become a public intellectual, a celebrity, to his father's disdain. Although Eliezer's parents moved to Israel in 1932, and he was born there, he seems to personify the Old Jew, Uriel the New. Eliezer is a couch cartoffle, while Uriel plays a mean, very mean, game of squash. Eliezer is resigned to being the Victim, having lost the Israel Prize 20 years running. When Uriel is victimized — the theft of his clothing in the gym — he responds with bravado, exiting in a fencer's uniform, assuming the aristocratic bearing of the German/Austrian enemy. In contrast, Eliezer bristles when the security guard asks him to bare his wrists — he reads the blue entry bracelets as if they were tattooed numbers. As in Beaufort, the Israeli security guard's German shepherd evokes the concentration camps. As Eliezer approaches his own award ceremony at the end, he seems completely dissociated from the surreal business around him — costumed dancers, drummers, the paraphernalia of a televised awards show — especially the puffs of gas-like vapour as the winners approach the stage. Though he was spared the Nazi nightmare this Old Jew assumes its psychological scars and its indelible memories — and responds to every slight with aggressive belligerence. In Eliezer's survey the definitions of "fortress" range down from security and shield to trap. Both men are trapped by their shields against each other. But where Uriel annually nominates his father for the Israel Prize and fights to let him keep it after the mistaken announcement, Eliezer uses the newspaper interview to attack his more famous son's academic standing. The family visit to Fiddler on the Roof leaves Eliezer complacently humming "Tradition," while his son seethes in anger and his wife is pained by knowing of her husband's delusion. Eliezer obviously missed the play's thrust, which is the fiddler's delicate balance on the rooftop trying to modulate his Tradition to deal with the changing world. For Eliezer tradition remains an indomitable fortress.Uriel's meeting with the awards committee is the film's most resonant scene. It begins with telling comedy: the room is so small, so crammed with chairs and people, that any movement is a problem. The image of people jammed together in too small a space clearly indicates that whatever other themes and issues the film may examine, it is crucially about Israel — the sliver of land surrounded by the sea and the massive nations of antagonists bent upon driving the Jews into it. In a space so small there is no room for such heated and profoundly protracted differences. Yet in that small space the conflicts persist. The space filled with chairs is also filled with egos, with fortresses, the characters determined to defend their principles to the end. Uriel properly challenges Grossman on the amount of anger and violence caused by his intransigent defence of his Truth. In that jam no compromise is possible. But in the freer confines of Grossman's office/fortress, Uriel manages to draw out a painful and expensive resolution. The space theme spreads beyond that room. Eliezer and Uriel are academically jammed into a minuscule area of scholarship. Eliezer constantly makes himself an outsider, getting trapped outside his son's award ceremony, walking beside the family car, standing apart in family photos. Grossman is ramming together his garbage cans when he calls to Eliezer his unwelcome Mazel tov on Uriel's success. The film closes on the TV host's instruction to rise for Hatikvah, Israel's national anthem. That confirms that the film's family drama and the academic politics are but metaphors for the nation's predicament. We don't learn Eliezer's decision on accepting the award because we don't know which way Israel's vehemently divided patriotisms will go. We don't hear the anthem but we know its powerful sway. Perhaps the clash of too rigid and righteous fortresses, each with its own ardent truth, risks reducing the national project to a footnote. For more see www.yacowar.blogspot.com.

Boba_Fett1138 It's not like this is a bad movie but it's just one like dozens of others, that get made each year, mostly in Europa or as little art-house movies in America. When watching this movie I just couldn't help wondering what was supposed to be so special about it. In my opinion there is nothing special about it really but that of course does not make this a bad movie to watch as well.It's simply an enjoyable and light little movie, that doesn't ever get too heavy handed, even though it could had easily gone that way. And I thank the movie for that but at the same time it's also giving too little in return. The movie is taking a more comedy approach to its buildup but with as a problem that there isn't really any true comedy in this movie. It sort of reminded me of a Wes Anderson movie. They are supposed to be comical movies, without anything comical ever happening in it really. It's just not my favorite style of film-making but I know I'm probably a minority on this, so to most people, this won't be a complaint at all.It's a movie with a good enough story, that ensures that the movie keeps going at all time. It's definitely not a boring movie to watch, despite of a slower type of approach at times.I wasn't the biggest fan of its visual and technical approach though. I don't know, I guess I have just seen a bit too many movies like this already, so I'm sort of starting to get fed up with these type of movies looking all the same with its camera-handling and editing, that all should remind you of a more indie type of movie. I really did wish that this movie would bad done some more new and interesting stuff at times. That way I would had, no doubt, got more into the movie and would had found it more interesting and pleasant to watch all. It now instead is not a movie that I can wholeheartedly or enthusiastically recommend to you, since it just isn't ever doing anything special, with its story, characters or visuals.Certainly not bad and still quite good for what it is but it's still a movie you could so easily do without.7/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

dromasca If 'Footnote' will win the Oscar for the Best Foreign language film it will certainly by more than a footnote in the history of Israeli cinema, it will be a big event, the first time an Israeli film gets the Oscar. It's just that I do not believe that this will happen (and of course I wish to be wrong), and I also believe that out of the four Israeli films that made it in the final selection of the category in the last five years Footnore is maybe the one that deserves less, as it is simply not as good as the previous three, including director Joseph Cedar's own Beaufort.Just to make clear, Footnote is not a bad film and it has its moments of real beauty. Many of these turn around the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the words and their meanings, the buildings block of the language and of the Jewish wisdom, and of the sacred text of the Bible. This is probably one of the elements that fascinated the jury of the Academia and made them decide to shortlist the film and include it in the prestigious final selection for the Oscar prize. The film is before all the story of the dramatic relationship between a father and a son who are unable to communicate in and within the terms of real life, but they do communicate and understand each other in codes of words. As with the famous (or infamous) Bible codes stories, the letters and words of the Hebrew language hide a story hidden beyond the first layer of perception available to us, the other mortals. But even if we set aside the element of exoticism that is not that striking for the Israeli or Hebrew knowledgeable viewer we are still left with the exquisite acting of the two lead characters (Shlomo Bar-Aba and Lior Ashkenazi), with strong supporting roles from Aliza Rosen and Micah Lewensohn, and with a mix of styles which is sometimes daring like the description of the career of the son using techniques of 'professional' publicity juxtaposed to the restrained way of presenting the work of the father in the style of commentaries on text. It is in the conflict between the world of ideas and the material world, in the lack of acceptance and integration of the character of the father with the universe dominated by the obsession of the security, showing respect not for the essence but to the superficial ceremonies, it is here that lies much of the ideology that motivates the story in the film.Yet at the end I also felt a feeling of dis-satisfaction. Part resulted maybe not directly from the film itself but my own experience of living in Israel, where religious studies are not and exotic element but one of the key pillars at the foundation of the social and cultural life. There is much to be told about this world which is full of wonders and miracles but also of cheating and demagogy. Cedar's film left me with the feeling that while trying to approach the problematic aspects of this field of life, refused to take any position or insert a critical comment beyond the sin face. Then the openness and the life-like ambiguity which in many other films works wonderfully is taken here in my opinion one or several steps too far. We never know whether the research of the father had any real value, we are left in the dark with the roots of the conflict between the father and the head of the prize Israel jury, and a character like the wife and mother could have been better developed. The strong story of the relation between the son and the father and the son's sacrifice which here goes in different direction than usual remains suspended. 'Footnote' looks well polished but unfinished.