Tempos Inocentes

10-year-old Aya, the only daughter of two doctors doctors from Tel Aviv who are leaving on a trip to help Thai refugees, is placed in a kibutz where she must deal with the challenges of living with dozens of other children in a dormitory-style setting, four children per room, and placed without regard to gender.

The story can be broken into two parts. The story of Aya is a wonderful, slow-moving story of a shy and quiet girl, unused to the press and rush of living with other children, who strives to find her niche in the social sphere of the kibutz. Naturally, she develops both friends and enemies, and although the acting of the all the children tends to be rather wooden, this story is quite well done.

The second part of the story is the peripheral support to Aya's story. We see life around the kibutz, and the children's interactions with each other and with the adults. This part of the story lacks cohesion, the plots are sketchy, often without understandable motivations, and scenarios that strain credulity.

This is a film that had a story to tell, but it was unable to pull the pieces together into a cohesive unit. I give it a 5/10