Walk on Water

This film is a pro-gay film masquerading as a thriller. While Israel struggles for survival as a Jewish State, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni wants to substitute Israel as a a homosexual haven in the eastern Mediterranean. This film should help and please the Europeans, too.

I had been wanting to view another movie by Lior Ashkenazi because I enjoyed the movie Late Marriage and the authenticity of his performance. Well, I wasn't disappointed with Walk on Water. I was hoping he would run away with the grandson, but that didn't happen. I shouldn't give away the plot lines or the outcome other than to say our hero has to face a lot of his prejudices both sexually (non-explicit) and emotionally (the holocaust and those on the persecuting side who successfully escaped to other countries to live out their lives in peace and prosperity -- and anonymity). All this means is that the movie is fast paced, full of twists-and-turns and in the end becomes highly illuminating.

This is a great movie showing many facets of being an Israeli, a Jew, young German, and how history impacts individuals. And it has a good ending. Well done on many levels. I'm very glad to own it.

It is refreshing to watch movies depicting things other than American suburbia and exploding cars, and speaking several languages with naturalness, and seeing actors move against truly urban and/or exotic backdrops.
Yes, I confess, I am one of those people who ravenously scour the BlockBuster and takes anything foreign that looks remotely promising.

But this movie severely tested my patience.
I can't decide whether it is that Lior Ashkenazi and Knut Berger are bad actors, or the plot simply forces them to act in such a stiff way, that they can't perform.

If this movie aims at encompassing the subjects of hatred, identity, homosexuality, war, and forgiveness, and then produce some sort of coherent message, it fails. Instead of a plot, we have characters engaging, more or less randomly, in sanctimonious exchanges that don't add up to much, followed by the occasional gratuitous cruelty.

Paradoxically, the less important the characters, the best the acting is. Gideon Shemer is good as the mild-mannered, avuncular secret service S.O.B. Axel's mother and father are also solid and give a credible performance. Even the short appearances of the rest of the Mossad staff are credible and to the point.

But as soon as Eyal (Ashklenazi) embarks in some statement about the Holocaust or the Palestinians, or Axel (Berger) tries so hard to play the liberal-assumed-homosexual-that-can-be-friends-with-an-hetero, the movie stops dead.

At some point the movie is so trite that becomes annoying.
-Axel's Grandpa is a Nazi war criminal. Gee, I wonder to what Argentine country he fled.
-Eyal has to come, reluctantly, to Germany. Gee, I wonder what is going to happen in the subway when their friends cross a group of skinheads.
-Axel and Eyal have to bath together. Gee, I wonder about what semitic ritual operation they will talk about (all in a safe, heterosexual way, of course).

I don't continue because I risk to ruin whatever little plot the movie has. But you get the idea.

One of the best movies I have seen in a long time. Character development is fantastic, as you get to know each unique personality.