Kippur

Kippur (2000) Directed by Amos Gitai Starring: Liron Levo, Tomer Russo, Uri Klausner, Yoram Hattab, and Guy Amir ***1/2 out of 5 stars

Forgive me if I see the good in everything, but I believe that this Israel film, which features excruciatingly long takes and little dialogue, DOES have some deep significance. However, the long takes ARE draining, yet when you realize the purpose, it all seems to make sense.

Based on Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai's personal experiences in the Yom Kippur war in 1973, in which Egyptian and Syrian forces attacked Israel on their holy day of Yom Kippur, "Kippur" follows a search and rescue team of four people as they travel by helicopter to different war-torn areas to find as many people alive as possible and bring them to some sort of safety and medical treatment. The film begins with two characters, Ruso (Yes, Russo) and Weinraub (Levo), who find themselves abruptly trying to get into a war. One of the characters (Ruso, I believe) is eager to get to the battlefront, proclaiming that a war has finally reached their generation and that "it is ours!". You must understand that Israel has been going through a war at least once, if not twice a decade. So, war, to the naive, inexperience individual, seems like a rite of passage.

Ruso and Weinraub, after awkwardly entering the front lines and being told to go back as shells are heard closeby, stop on the side and meet up with Gadassi (Amir), a medical officer trying to find a ride to the mission briefing. When they finally get to the battlefield to start the search and rescue, you soon find out that the film is about the death, detachment, and irrationality of war. What began as a rite of passage for the characters ended up being a strange, tortured nightmare. They go from area to area finding amputees and dead soldiers, usually unable to help all and having to leave much of the bodies on the battlefield. One torturous take follows the four characters as they try to help a soldier, who is hurt and obviously alive, out of a big field of mud. As they fall and slip, the soldier's body is thrown around, unintentionally carelessly. The frustration takes over one of the soldiers helping him as he breaks down in the middle of the mud and the doctor is going back and forth trying to calm the panicking soldier and help the injured one. When they finally make it to some other officers waiting for them to take the soldier away, he is already dead and the helplessness on the soldier's muddy faces says it all.

This film can be and will be very draining for most viewers. The long takes and the often far away framing distances ourselves from the action and you should soon learn to explore and examine what Gitai is trying to convey through the characters' stories. The film DOES build up to a briefly explosive climax, which poetically brings everything full circle for the soldiers. "Kippur" is a difficult film appropriate for its difficult subject. It is also daring, unwavering in its message, and, most importantly, truthful to the nonsense that war really is.

As an Israeli's view of war, "Kippur" takes "Thin Red Line"s visual approach, with little plot or explication or context, from the sacred (Yom Kippur mis en scene) to the procreative beginning, to the wounds and exhausted faces of the soldiers.

This is a war where a soldier takes his used Fiat right up to the front and back again to his girlfriend's front door. Unlike "Tigerland" where the soldiers are young neophytes with taut basic training bodies, these are lean, lanky, long-haired chain-smoking, experienced reservists who pretty much pick and choose where they'll serve. Instead of the usual U.S. barking sergeant, this unit is based on long-term friendship, training, coordination, shared goals and consensus. Fodder for discussion on military management styles. And I can't think of another war movie where a guy named Weinraub is as sexy looking.

Even my husband, who is a devotee of the War Channel and thought it was way too arty (and amazingly this was from the same director who did the agit-prop anti-Orthodox domestic drama "Kadosh") found one long sequence with almost no dialog very effective, as the medics try to rescue the wounded in the mud.

The projectionist shut down the credits before it was finished.

(originally written 12/2/2000)

This is not a Hollywood film, and not an action film by any means. Its an art film, just look at the opening love making sequence. Two characters making love sopping in paint on Yom Kippur while everyone else takes part in religious activities. You dont get much more sac-religious than this. So we know this is not a propoganda film.

Despite its boredom and such, when compared to other "anti-war" films like platoon and such, this is king. Why? Because there is nothing glorifying about it or the characters, its boring, there is not a single gunshot in the whole film. Rather we spend 2 hours following a medical rescue team in a chopper hauling dead and wounded bodies into a chopper. No heroic sacrifice, no barely dodging bullets and RPG's, no cool action sequences at all. Israel needs more films like this, to see the futility of fighting wars like this. The use of long shots puts us on the outside looking in on the film, and the use of long takes helps us observe these events in real time. Specifically with the stuck in the mud scene. THe one character ironically says "this earth, this sH^&*^" When the Israeli ideology is so focused on a spiritual connection with the land, the land they feel entitled to.

Its about time that Anti-war films actually institute a feeling of real social change, and not pretend to be anti-war films conveying sacrifice and a "it was worth it" ideal. Real anti-war films do not just show the horror of blood and guts and death, they show the futility of it completely. And they are very difficult for the viewer to accept for the first time.

When the siren sounds the two main characters head off to do their part for the Israeli state. The bookends on the movie place the context of war as an eventuality that, like working, has to be done. The action doesn't take place at the front but with a medical evac unit who's cleaning up the wounded after the action has moved on. My two reasons for liking this film are the creative camera work and the battlefield sounds and visuals. Early in the film when they're looking for their unit they do accidentally drive right into the front lines and the viewer (camera) is placed right in the back seat of their Fiat as they scramble to get turned around. My one complaint. The characters lack development. Overall an enjoyable film.

I disagree with most of the comments of the other commentors. This film is not a "History of Yom Kippur War" It is a very realistic attempt to see the war through a personal eyes of a Reserve Soldier suddenly called up and "Thrown" in to a War. It is 30 years since that war which is contraversial in Israel because we were caught by surprise by Egypt and Syria. On the other side within less than a month the Israeli army was 30 KM from Damascus and 100 KM from Cairo. I know people killed in that war and like other Israelis think "Kippur" shows the Trauma of that War, And any War. I have visited Egypt a number of times and Hope that, as Saadat said "The October War should be the Last War...". This is my "Apocalypse Now" movie but much more realistic.