Foxtrot

The methaphorical depiction of the futile repetition of war suggested by the 'Foxtrot' title deserved a better examination than this poorly acted, tedious & ultimately unconvincing movie. Even the several Foxtrot dance scenes themselves were stilted & out of place - ditto the videos of murmations of starling flocks clumsily inserted into the cinematography. In theory the plot contained a powerful narrative of the harrowing wartime experiences of the father being repeated by his conscript son but this was lost in the overly tedious & sometimes completely pointless plot - as in the scenes involving a soft-adult magazine also handed down from father to son - which just reduced the movie's important themes to comic book farce. Things improved significantly in the third act of the movie only to be deflated again by the weak final scene (..no spoilers..) It could have been so much better.

I am not sure why, but there's just something about this movie that brings warmth to my heart. I can't say that there's something inherently unique about its message, but the way that it communicated it really resonated with me. There is no evil in this film that causes pain to characters but rather just unfortunate events. And it's not someone's fault too. I think that this is a movie about the unnecessary suffering that we all have to live through. This message is often delivered with unnecessary pretentiousness and I was happy to feel none in this film.

There were a couple of lines that felt unnecessary, but it is because the whole movie is quite subtle and communicates a lot without words so these lines felt out of place.

The cinematography is also great, although it is not something I often draw attention to. Oh, and the acting is absolutely stellar, especially one of the father, I couldn't take my eyes off his performance.

I am upset that nobody I know saw this movie but I sure will recommend it to as many people as possible from now on so it gets credit it deserves.

This highly acclaimed drama from Israel is a thoughtful and deep reflection on how we perceive of the scars that grief and guilt can leave on us. The film follows a patriarch and his wife who are told at the beginning of the film by Israeli army officers that their son was killed in the line of duty. These two parents begin to embark on a seemingly hellish grieving process...for the first 30 minutes. I won't give away what happens next, but the film ends up taking a variety of unique twists and turns through three distinct parts similar to that of a triptych-style narrative. It's not quite what you think it is, that's for sure.

The acting in the film is consistently excellent, particularly the performance of the father. He manages to engage the audience in his seething feelings of sadness and an almost-primal sensation of rage, while still feeling uniquely down-to-earth and relatable. This is an almost impossible trick to pull off. Samuel Maoz clearly knows how to write thoughtful analysis of the society and people of Israel, with a clockwork level of precision--and props to him for that. The pacing in the film's three acts, however, could have been improved and can feel somewhat erratic in the movie's second half. Additionally, the finale of the movie is done in a somewhat peculiar manner that falls a bit short of what would most satisfy the viewer in terms of wrapping up the story. Still, I definitely recommend "Foxtrot" to those interested and thought this was quite a well-made film at the end of the day. 7.5/10

Greetings again from the darkness. The most dreaded knock on the door. Every parent or spouse of someone who has served their country during war time fully understands that indescribable feeling of opening the door and seeing uniformed soldiers waiting to deliver the worst possible news. That knock is how Israeli writer/director Samuel Maoz (LEBANON, 2009) chooses to open his film. Knowing her son Daniel is dead sends Daphna (Sarah Adler) into hysterics, and the experienced messengers know to administer something to help her relax and sleep. Her husband Michael (Lior Ashkenazi, FOOTNOTE) stands stunned, mostly unable to respond.

What follows is one of the most stunning first Act performances we've seen on the big screen. That is not hyperbole. Mr. Ashkenazi is remarkable over the first approximately 20 minutes as a parent in shock, experiencing devastating grief. The news is debilitating to his physical and mental being. Additionally, the filmmaking during this segment is quite something to behold. The close-ups add a heavy dose of humanity, while the terrific overhead camera angle presents Michael as trapped, while also adding to the disorientation that is so key. The one-hour alarm set to remind him to "drink some water" would be humorous if not for the fact that its structure prevents the man from totally breaking down.

The second Act takes us away from Daphna's and Michael's contemporary Tel Aviv apartment and plops us into a remote military outpost where 4 young soldiers are charged with guarding a road passage. Thanks to this boring assignment, the young men find ways of adding interest to their days: timing canned goods that roll down the ever-increasing slope of their sinking-in-the-muck domicile container, raising the bar for the periodic camel that lopes by, and giving the rare passers-by a bit of a hard time as their ID's are checked. 'Of course, this is war territory, so when something goes wrong, it goes terribly and horrifically wrong.

Our final Act takes us back to the original apartment as Michael, Daphna and their daughter are working to reconcile their feelings and somehow re-assemble the pieces of their shattered lives ... though the shifts from that heartbreaking first Act are what sets the script apart from so many movies. Cinematographer Giora Bejach continues the exemplary camera work during this curious segment that leaves us feeling somewhat uncertain at first.

This family is stuck in the war that never ends. Like so many in the area, they carry burdens, guilt and grief that, like the war, also never ends. That first Act is transcendent filmmaking and acting, and the three acts work together as a prime example of the melding of visual and emotional storytelling. Most of the film takes place in one of two locales, and it's the subtleties in each shot that tell us what we must know. And yes, the foxtrot dance does play a role, but like most of this film, it's best discovered on your own.

'Foxtrot' begins with a woman, Dafna (Sarah Adler), opening her front door, seeing who is on the doorstep and immediately fainting. Moments later her husband Michael (Lior Ashkenazi, possibly Israel's busiest actor) is told by three members of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) that his and Dafna's son Jonathan has been killed on military service. The IDF take over everything, arranging the funeral, dispensing sedatives to Dafna and setting alarms on Michael's telephone to remind him to drink every hour. Then the scene shifts and we are at Jonathan's lonely desert outpost, where the soldiers - when not sleeping and eating in a slowly-sinking shipping container - man a grubby checkpoint used most regularly by an unaccompanied camel. A final scene change brings us back to Dafna and Michael on what would have been Jonathan's twentieth birthday.

I found the middle and final segments the most interesting: although not a lot happens at the checkpoint, the segment set there is an interesting study on how boys from comfortable middle-class backgrounds cope when handed guns and forced to live in squalor. The bereaved parents' conversation in the third segment, in which we see how their loss has affected their relationship, is terribly bittersweet. By contrast, the first segment has a curiously episodic feel to it that may be intended to convey how Michael stumbles through the hours immediately after learning of his son's death, but I found rather jarring. On the whole, though, this slow-moving film is well worth watching.