Walk on Water

An unusual spy thriller from Israel, Walk on Water's first scene follows Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi, a fine and handsome actor, somewhat reminiscent of Clive Owen, and who played a quite different character in the comedy Late Marriage), a tough-minded Mossad agent, as he coolly kills a Hamas operative in Istanbul in front of his family. Soon after returning from this mission, though, his wife commits suicide, so his superiors decide to give him what looks like a light assignment: posing as the tour guide of a couple of German tourists (a brother and sister) in order to become friendly with them and find out if they know about the whereabouts of their grandfather (a former nazi, who is presumably still living in Argentina). As it happens, the Germans are very different in their outlook from Eyal - they are liberal types who want to understand why Palestinian terrorists are willing to blow themselves to pieces - this humanization of the Palestinians infuriates the tough Sabra. The Germans are different in another way - the brother is gay, in contrast with the very macho Eyal, and much is made in the movie about their uneasy relationship. The final act of the movie, as Eyal goes to Germany to deal with their grandfather is more contrived, less believable, but the movie overall is highly entertaining and thought provoking.

"WALK ON WATER"

Where Are We Going?


Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride

"Walk on Water" (Sony Classics), Eytan Fox's follow up to his phenomenal "Yossi and Jagger" is a politically complex and ambitious film and is a memorable story of guilt, revenge and the connectivity of man. It s profound and multilayered and I found it rewarding.
Eyal, an Israeli secret service agent is heartless and therefore a perfect hit man but it also hinders him from being able to connect with those that are close to him. With the suicide of his wife he goes into a tailspin. He is then given the assignment of playing tour guide to a German brother and sister whose grandfather was a high ranking German officer. Pia, the sister, has come to live in Israel due to her shame of what her grandfather did, and Alex, her brother, is a liberal, easygoing gay male whose open-mindedness bothers the gent. When Eyal travels to Berlin to se Alex the horrible past is revealed of both men is revealed.
"Walk on Water" concerns itself with several major issues, among them politics, sexuality an reconciliation with the past and the wonderful direction of Fox manages to bring all of the themes together.
It has been over 6o years since World War II and the Nazis attempted the extermination of an entire race. The feelings about this mass extermination are still alive in modern Israel where so many of the descendants of those killed by the Nazis live today. The film looks deeply at the uneasy relationship between young Germans today and the Jews who grew up in a culture which still lives in shame and awe of the terror and the later implications of the Holocaust. The Germans who appear in this film were raised in a culture of silent guilt about the atrocities that their grandparents committed while Israelis continue to have a bitter resentment toward the German people. This is the baggage that weighs heavy on Eyal's mission as a member of Israeli intelligence. He has been assigned to track down and kill Himmelman, a Nazi war criminal who happens to be the grandfather of the two Germans he is assigned to take care of. The Israeli philosophy of capturing former Nazis is to get to them before God does. The loss of his own wife to suicide torments Eyal and influences the way he looks at things. When he meets the young Himmelmans he finds them to be as extroverted as
he, himself, is introverted and homophobic. This difference in demeanors makes for awkward interaction between Eyal and the people he is to care for and he is constantly aware that the two are descendants of Nazis. Making it even harder for him is the fact that he likes both Alex and Pia, Their friendship appears extremely tenuous as eventually Eyal comes to realize that these are actual people and not products of some Satanic construct. As the movie moves forward, Eyal is forced to reveal his true self and even b reach his new relationships with Alex and Pia in order to fulfill his duty. Relationships built on false pretenses and a highly intelligent screenplay with twists and turn all along the way makes this film a stunner. What we get is a study of race relations which us powerful and very moving. Unpredictable and heavy handed, "Walk on Water" is a dramatic thriller that attacks racism, homophobia and prejudice in general. You cannot outguess the film--whenever you think you have everything figured out there is a twist and a turn to take you along another path. The movie does not go where it is expected to go so you are taken on a ride never knowing your destination--even when you arrive there.

The article was well packed and arrived quickly. I like the service that is behind the ordering and shipping. It's clearly service I shall use again.

This was a really great movie. Being Israeli myself, the movie was accurate and believable and I enjoyed the fact that the Hebrew was not dubbed over it English. I would recommend it to anyone!

This is a pathetic, shallow movie that insults person's intelligence.
It is quite anti-semitic, by showing Jews not the way they are, but the way Jew-haters want to see them: as heartless bullies, obsessed with vengeance.
The scene of an Israeli Mossad agent killing an Arab man on the street in Turkey before the eyes of his wife and little son elicits sympathy for the victim. We have been told that this was a Hamas leader, but this does not get much emphasis in the movie. The effect would be very different, if they would show first mass murder of innocent Jews done by such types as this Hamas leader.
In this the movie is very manipulative.
All three Mossad agents shown in the movie are caricature-like, made very cruel and unattractive.
It is emphasized that the motivation for Mossad is vengeance and inability to forgive, but the truth is the vengeance is not a main motivation for Jews, but justice is.
If those Hamas murders are left alive, they will cause many more murders, and it is immoral to let them live.
As to the part of the movie showing the pursuit of an old ex-nazi, it is totally stupid and unrealistic, and again vengeance is wrongly emphasized as motivation.
To sum up, this is a sad and un-artistic creation of degenerate secular Israeli culture, done by people without any healthy self-respect and any knowledge about their rich, beautiful and eternal Jewish tradition, which always did and still provokes hate from enemies of civilization.