Huievest
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
museumofdave
This is a film about a man discovering his conscience; it is brilliantly written, as we meet an impassive, chilly killer-for-hire go quietly about his business, who in the course of his work becomes personally involved with the family of his next victim To reveal too much about the plot would be to spoil a viewer's involvement--it is lushly photographed in Israel, in Germany, deals with the residuals of Fascist rule, with sexist preconceptions, with the nature of love; it's subtle set of themes creep up on you after long after you view the film and realize how much of the film could have gone awry with it's complex overlays of interlacing themes and careful mixture of politics and personal stories.
bobgeorge1
Walk on Water is summarised well in many reviews. Some of them avow and generate extremes by using terms like "Terrorist". The film grapples with extremes of prejudice. The Mossad agent Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi) assassinates a Hamas leader at the start of the film returning home to find his wife has committed suicide. Eyal is detached. He has to be to do his job. His boss Menachem gives him a safer temporary job of pretending to be a tour guide for the grandchildren of a Nazi war criminal, Alfred Himmelman, with the idea that the tourists will lead him to their grandfather.This German brother and sister with their own issues open up the eyes of Eyal to his own prejudices; he is challenged by Axel Himmelmans (Knut Berger) sexuality. He is also challenged by Axel's sister Pia (Carolina Peters), a German lass who lives and works on a kibbutz in Israel.I saw this film on television. I chanced upon it with no reviews or prior knowledge and got quite gripped by the tensions of the main character. Other reviewers have said that Lior Ashkenazi is an attractive actor.What intrigued me was the struggle to let go of being hurt. I've been working with a couple who can't let go of their anger with each other; of the hurt that comes through being violated in different ways. I'm not sure that love overcomes everything is quite the answer. I'm not sure that this film answers that question although it does highlight it so well.It felt like a film in black and white; lots of deep shadows and in the end...well go see and decide
lastliberal
This movie was billed as a film about a Mossad agent going after a war criminal. One would suspect something along the lines of The Bourne Identity or Munich. You would be sorely disappointed.This is a film about life and about people. It is about forgiving and forgetting. It's about "getting over it." It is about acceptance of others regardless of their national origin or sexual orientation.This film is full of surprises and it is how people deal with those surprises that is what is so fascinating about it. It is about generational differences and how the same thing affects the young and old.If you are interested in Holocaust films or Israeli-Palestinaian relations, then this is a film you will certainly enjoy.
Christopher T. Chase
It certainly is startling and refreshing whenever you stumble across a non-"Hollywood-ized" movie made for adults that breaks the mold of both mainstream and indie films in a good way. I had heard very little about WALK ON WATER when I happened to catch the previews, and the story piqued my interest immediately.Eyal, (the sullen but ruggedly handsome Lior Ashkenazi), a Mossad operative, has just completed yet another successful mission - the assassination of a well-known Hamas leader. Extraordinarily adept at his calling, Eyal can deal death without batting an eyelash, but dealing with deep-seated feelings and with a failing marriage is quite another matter altogether. However, the reality of his compromised personal life becomes shatteringly clear with the suicide of his wife, Iris (a tragically beautiful Natali Szylman, whom we regrettably see little of in most of the movie.) Bent but not broken (or so he claims), Eyal is ready to throw himself into another assignment, but his boss and mentor, the grandfatherly Menachem (Gideon Shemer) won't hear of it. Instead, he has a "special" assignment for his favorite agent: to get closely involved with the German granddaughter and grandson of a Nazi war criminal who has been secreted away by his family in an undisclosed location.Rather than submit to a psychiatric evaluation, Eyal reluctantly complies and serves as the tour guide to the outgoing and sweet-natured Axel Himmelman (Knut Berger), who has come to visit his sister Pia (Caroline Peters) at the kibbutz where she lives and works.At first, the mix is anything but an easy one; the swarthy, sullen Israeli and the humanistic blond Germans. But together with his vivacious sister, the two "marks" slowly and unwittingly begin to melt the steely exterior of the man charged with escorting them, until the most startling of Axel's personality "quirks" comes to light - Axel is also gay.For the stereotypically macho hawk Eyal, who has barely been able to tolerate what he perceives is Axel's naively altruistic view of the world, this is the last straw. The three of them part company, and on anything but the best of terms.But with a twist in the developments of the case involving the missing war criminal Alfred Himmelman (Ernest Lenart), Eyal finds himself once again sharing the company of Axel. To say that the encounter is life-changing is an understatement, as an invitation to a birthday party for Axel's dad uncovers secrets and lies, and shatters the fragile facades built from a gossamer web of betrayal and denial, not only for the Himmelman family as a whole, but for Eyal himself, who finally achieves a soul-cleansing catharsis from the most unlikely of places and the most unusual of friends.Questioning the most difficult conventions of nationality, ideology, sexuality and spirituality is something that most films, mainstream or otherwise, can find it tough to do when just tackling a couple of these issues. Yet Gal Uchovsky's well-crafted screenplay manages to hit every point at once without getting too preachy or ham-handed, and thankfully director Eytan Fox knows exactly when and how to give the script and the actors room to breathe.The ending seems a little too pat and tidy for my taste, but that is minor quibbling. I just cannot recommend this movie highly enough to both lovers of foreign film and good movies in general. The subject matter is as intricately layered as the use of the four different languages spoken in the movie, (Hebrew, English, German and a bit of Arabic), as is the choice of music (American and Israeli folk and pop leaven the surprisingly engaging soundtrack), and all of it is as involving and enlightening as you could hope for from an intelligent and ultimately uplifting film experience such as this.I look forward to seeing more of the work of both Mr. Fox and Mr. Ashkenazi with great anticipation.
