Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

abb230 The subject of this film is difficult, a friendship and a war that comes in between friends. I would have given it a 9 but the propaganda in the film brings it down big time. This is not a historical film but it appears that some key dates have been followed.Why do I call it a propaganda film? Because, it shows good and bad on both sides but actually it subtly forces the viewer to sympathise with one side. This is the art of propaganda. Also called brainwashing which keeps happening again and again. It feels that we will see many more propaganda films in the future. Also, the Brits got the wrong end of the stick, which is almost funny.The two main characters, Bobby and Said are very likable as they appear as very genuine blokes. Their friendship is a real pleasure to watch, shame it was used to cover up the real agenda.

plkldf I enjoyed this film and I'm going to review it instead of discussing the pros and cons of Israel/Palestine.I saw it at Cinema Sundays at the Charles, here in Baltimore MD USA.In the interest of full disclosure, I am not Jewish, and I am anti-Israel and pro-Palestine.At Cinema Sundays, the host is Jewish, and this week's discussion leader is also Jewish -- I think I'm safe in saying it's a largely Jewish group which goes to Cinema Sundays and attended this screening. Although a show of hands said that more liked it than disliked it, the host and discussion leader didn't like it at all --- the discussion leader had even skipped the pre-screening the day before -- his reason seemed to boil down to he had better things to do.The discussion was largely (but not all) panning the film.I thought (with one glaring exception, which I won't reveal here) that the movie was balanced, while telling the story primarily from the Jewish side. In the foreground, it concerns an American Jew and an Arab Palestinian who meet in the U.S. and become friends. Each finds himself going to Palestine in 1947, knowing that a conflict is coming, a struggle for control of the land. The story of these two men and their friends and lovers is in the foreground, and in the background is the story of the British leaving Palestine, and the U.N. vote for partition.There's a fair amount of violence, sudden, unexpected violence realistically portrayed. However, there's no enjoyment of the mayhem, and but little glorification of it.I felt well-informed by the movie in terms of its telling of the story of the birth of Israel. I think this is good story-telling -- although, of course, the two main characters keep encountering each other even after they split up - well, duh, it's a movie about these two characters! :o) A little cinematic license. There's a very touching and emotional scene near the end which had me riveted.I think the story is told relatively objectively (which is to say, more objectively than, say, 90% of news coverage here in the USA, which overwhelmingly favors Israel) while holding out hope for reconciliation between Arabs and Jews in Israel/Palestine. And, I have to say, I think that's why so many people at Cinema Sundays disliked the movie, without really being able to articulate why ("I've seen this all before, oversimplified, unlikely...") -- because it was objective and told the Arab side, and portrayed the Palestinians as human beings who suffered in the partition.I give it an 8 because of the one pulled punch, which I thought destroyed the balance of the film. I'll discuss that on the Message Boards, as I don't want to Spoil the movie.

hassan-38 O Jerusalem is certainly a good step in the right direction. It does not claim to be a historically pin-point accurate epic, but it does cover most of the salient events of that period in history.I have personally known Abdelqader Al-Husseini, and Major – later Colonel – Abdallah Al-Tal. The first was the son of one of the top aristocratic families in Jerusalem, and the second hails from a large tribe in the area of Irbid in what is known today as Jordan. As the film shows, Husseini was let down by the Arab League and was killed in action during the Qastal operation. That corresponds to the facts. When Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre wrote their book bearing the same name as the film, they interviewed Husseini's sons. One of whom was Faysal Husseini of Orient House fame, and who died of a heart attack a few years ago.Major Tal's intervention during the fighting in Jerusalem was not sanctioned by the British Chief of Staff of the Arab Legion (i.e. the Jordanian Army), General Glubb Pasha, and only hesitantly if at all by King Abdullah. The latter was already pursuing secret negotiations with Golda Meir and Moshe Sharett about getting a piece of Palestine for himself (An act of high treason at that time, at least as far as the Palestinians were concerned). Major Tal's personal military initiative in Jerusalem secured the eastern part of the city for King Abdullah, but also for the Palestinians, until the 1967 Six Day war. But Abdullah became jealous because of Al-Tal's popularity and accused him of trying to seize power in Jordan in order to annex it to Syria (pretty disingenuous!) Al-Tal spent the next twenty years or so as a political refugee in Egypt. To check what Major Tal said during the encounter between him and the Haganah leaders (Moshe Dayan), interested individuals can read Dayan's and Al-Tal's memoirs (probably translated from Arabic by the IDF, and/or possibly by one of the Pentagon many agencies.The film perpetuates a line that has been discredited by historians on all sides, namely purporting that the "Arab governments asked the Palestinians to abandon their homes and leave their country so that the Arab armies could fight the "Jews" with ease". Nobody did call, and nobody would have responded to such a call. But Egypt and Jordan took every possible measure to prevent the Palestinians from acquiring weapons, and non-Palestinian volunteers were not encouraged to participate in the fighting.What is never clarified about the Palestinian-Israeli question, including by the Palestinians themselves, is that they did not rise against the Jewish Arab community that had lived among them for millenia, not even the few Europeans who had settled there during the Ottoman Empire. When, in the latter part of the 1920s and on, a new breed of mainly Eastern European Jewish immigrants escaping the horrors in Europe had started arriving into the country essentially with British help, and with the intent of creating a Jewish-only state; the only way for them to achieve that of course was by force. Nobody can fault anyone for resorting to force to oppose that predicament.I saw the DVD only yesterday in French, though it was obvious that the actors were speaking English, and the French was dubbed over it. I am looking for an English version if such exists. As for the change of title from "Beyond Friendship", which was probably going to appear in English, it is quite possible, though I cannot swear to it, that pressure was put on the distributors to avoid marketing the film in the USA. But then many of the actors are French.Some of the text titles translated into Arabic, and the name of a street or two in Jerusalem were not accurately translated or properly spelled in the film.Elie Chouraqui may be related to the famous André Chouraqui, who translated the Qoran into French, i.e. they should have a good understanding of the Arabic language and culture.All in all, the film could be a good discussion topic for both sides, to give events their proper names and historic dimensions in search for mutual accommodation. That is of course if they are willing and able to undertake this necessary exercise for the sake of their sanity, the future of their children and world peace. Otherwise they have no other choice! If you prefer, you may comment on my review in French.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU We had expected that film for decades and we finally get it. The absolute irresponsibility of the English in Palestine, the horrendous tragedy of nazism symbolized by the concentration camps as the final solution to the Jewish problem, the extreme barbarity of the extremist Jewish groups, the naive complacent blindness of many on both sides, these are the main reasons why the creation of Israel was more tragic than it should have been. Instead of a multicultural and multi-ethnic state, Isarel was founded as a Jewish state, that is to say a state whose definition was purely religious. For millenia the Jews and the Arabs had lived in normal peaceful relations, except when the Christians decided to come and crusade around in the Middle East, but suddenly the absolute absurdity of the international community was to find the berserk compromise of splitting Jerusalem in two, as a collateral decision of the creation of a Jewish state. Since 1948 the situation has little changed and it is war after war, a quasi permanent state of war. The film is admirable because it follows the historical situation through the eyes of a few young people who knew and loved one another deeply before coming to Palestine, in fact in New York, one Arab, three Jews and one Christian. It thus becomes the story of the uprooting of these friendships and loves, the impossible uprooting that dramatizes every step in this struggle, on both the Jewish and the Arab sides, and makes it become little by little more and more cosmic in the emotional intensity it assumes day after day, night after night. To marry the woman you love in the very last five minutes of her life erases any religious dimension in the ceremony that only becomes the mark of the deepest suffering of all : the suffering of a hope that seems to glide away with a sneer from your grip, especially when one of the witnesses of this Jewish wedding is the Arab friend of the two aspiring husband and wife and the son of the leader of the Arab community who was killed in the fight by the very bridegroom. This is a rewriting of the impossible love of so many tragedies, and first of all Romeo and Juliet, but in such a different context that it becomes a divine surprise that can easily lead to the rebirth of the hope that may have died in the meantime, but a hope that lives and strives in our own minds that one day soon Jerusalem will finally no longer be cut by a wall, that one day Palestine will be one again, in a way or another, for both the Jews and the Arabs, equal in dignity, equal in history, equal in faith and equal in love. When will dates be shared again and the agenda of Palestine be moving along one unified line. Here is the film we had all hoped would come one day like the prophet announcing the real Second Coming of peace on this earth for all the children of the only and yet multiple, or even absolutely non-religious, God of all men and women of good faith and quivering heart. We know it should be soon, but how soon we don't know. Suffering has been bad enough for it to stop now, at once, instantly, immediately. That is at least my deepest wish because we all have to love the Jews and the Arabs as our direct soul-brothers. But there are so many bitter intentions among us that love may wither away and eventually even die.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne