Shoshana

Given the lead time for any film, one assumes that this was planned, shot and mostly edited before the recent wave of atrocities (on both sides) broke out in Israel/Gaza/Palestine (choose which name you will). Nevertheless, the timing of its release is poignant.

The film is set in British-controlled Palestine in the thirties and forties as Jewish settlers clash with the indigenous Arabs, sparking off a wave of atrocities and counter-atrocities with the British finding themselves taking increasingly rigorous measures to suppress the violent factions on both sides, to the extent that they pretty much become a third terrorist force.

The Arab point of view fades from the film fairly early on (which is a shame) and the drama centres around two British policemen (Douglas Booth and Harry Melling - who's done some very interesting work since his Harry Potter days) and their attempts to track down and arrest a Jewish terrorist leader played by Aury Alby. Matters are complicated by the fact that one of the officers (Booth) is in a relationship with the titular Shoshana (Irina Starshenbaum) whose sympathies lie with those who wish to create a Jewish state, if not necessarily with those who employ indiscriminate violence to this end.

Things spiral out of the control of all parties as violence begets violence and the body count rises exponentially.

It's difficult to sympathise with either side, nor does the film attempt to do so (one well-known incident is depicted in a deliberately ambiguous manner). Are there any good guys? Maybe there are some well-meaning individuals caught up in events they can neither control nor comprehend, but the viewer is left shaking their head at the barbaric futility of it all. Who's to blame? Everyone who's set foot in the region over the last three thousand years, probably.

It's impossible to watch this film and not think about the events there today. The British may have gone, but the violence still remains - and is only getting worse.

The cast all do a terrific job, and the film's not short of tension. I just wish that a more positive message could be drawn from it.

"Sometimes you don't know who the spider is and who is the fly."

In the shadows of city streets as well as the human heart, deep and conflicting emotions simmer beneath the surface of Palestine under British authority in the 1930s. Predators become prey for the crime of loving too little, loving too much, or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A Zionist girl (Shoshana) and British boy (Timothy), equally well-connected, navigate these dark spaces together and apart. Alliances and relationships form and crumble like shifting winds. You think you know someone until their knife is in your back.

Based on real events and people, Shoshana is a thrilling look at how idealism breaks people and nations apart and brings them together. Shot along the seacoast of rural Italy which in certain ways resembles Tel Aviv of the 1930s, Shoshana tells the story of two lovers that parallels the simultaneous dissolution and formation of Israel. The director and main actors were present at the second showing of the film the day after the world premiere. Irina Starshenbaum (Shoshana) said it was hard to stay in great shape when there was such good Italian food available all the time. While I wish the chemistry was better between the actors and that the main theme was clearer, the film highlighted an important truth in relationships between people as well as countries; it matters what sort of thing is being built.

This is a curiously undercooked iteration of a story that well exemplifies that expression about one man's terrorist being another's freedom fighter. It's the underwhelming Douglas Booth who is Wilkin, a police detective based in British-administered Palestine and a man who has a semblance of decency to him. His boss "Chambers" (Ian Hart) is a bit more of a player, though - and he drafts in the much more "hands-on" Morton (the unremarkable Harry Melling) to get results more quickly - not least the apprehension of Stern (Aury Alby) who is determined to establish a Jewish homeland and doesn't much care which tactics he uses to accomplish that. The personal story is largely historical fact, so there's no real jeopardy here, but it's an interesting postulation on just how the British tried to administer a region and a population that had no interest in being administered, and that was being logistically manipulated with the shortest of term vision for anyone's future. Palestinian and Jew could agree on just one thing - get the UK out, but thereafter there was little consensus as the bombs and the bullets continued to fly. To be honest, I found the contribution of the eponymous woman (Irina Starshenbaum) to be almost incidental to what is essentially a rather dryly brutal story of a territory that always has been and will be fought over. It looks fine, but somehow it's all just a little too bitty - episodic, even, and it needed a bigger hitter to deliver the narrative more engagingly and convincingly. Pity.

Watched this during the Red Lorry Film Festival in Mumbai. The movie depicts a certain part of the independence struggle that led to the downfall of the British Empire in West Asia, leading to the formation of independent states of Israel and Palestine.

One of the most genius things the makers have achieved is that they haven't taken any sides, be it the British, the Jews or the Arabs. Each faction is depicted in contrasting ways, and none can be seen as a hero or a villain. Considering the super-sensitivity of this topic right now, not taking sides could be considered as an advantage for this movie.

The weakness of the movie lies in the character development. None of the characters get well-defined enough to have a substantial effect on the viewers, and by the end of it, you don't really feel much for any of the characters, dead or alive.

Overall : 7/10.

Giving this an 7/10 rating

Grim true story drama from good old Micheal Winterbottom, so it's rather good and very bloody, this one. Set in the late 1940's in Palestine, The conflict and four characters- Shoshana Borochov, played by Irina Starshenbaum, who is simply brilliant in her very complex role. Douglas Booth as Thomas Wilkin, Harry Melling as Geoffrey Morton and Aury Alby as he very unlikeable Avraham Stern, all are the foils to each other and the tale bounces around these four.

The action is extreme and bloody and very real, bombings assasinations, shootings all over the place, in fact there are so many it's common place, which is the horror and the beauty of it, the life blood of the narrative, but very, very necessary. It can be very cold and also beautiful, as the film looks and acts for the people are surrounded by nothing but death.

This film is right now, very topical so it will give you a sense of the sheer madness of what is going on in that region of the world and any where else for that matter. Expect plenty of death and shocks as Micheal Winterbottom turns it up way up, this is a limited release so the choice is yours, if you can stomach it. It's good, but just how good is going to be up to you, because of the subject matter is just so raw right now, and that it self is the message.