Kippur (2000) User Reviews

"Every minute of silence is a great treasure to me..."

[XisLove03 · 7/10 · 20 February 2005]

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.

Starts loosing its effectiveness after a while.

[Boba_Fett1138 · 7/10 · 18 August 2012]

This is being a pretty good and different war movie but it does start loosing some of its power after a while, once the movie starts repeating itself, over and over again.

I always enjoy watching movies, concerning history, which I don't know all that much about already. This is a movie centered around the Yom Kippur War and tells the movie entirely from the perspective of a rescue crew. This means that the movie itself isn't focusing on the fighting but more on its aftermath. This is an interesting approach for a war movie to take and of course also works effective as an anti-war movie.

Well, mostly effective, since the movie does start to wear out after a while. It seems that there is only so much you could do with this concept, before you start repeating stuff. Half way through I was waiting for the movie to take a different turn or do something unexpected or original. It doesn't do any of this really, which did left me a bit disappointed, especially since I was quite liking the movie at first.

It still remains a very well made movie. Visually there is very little wrong with this movie and it gives a pretty realistic and detailed view of a battlefield. Even though you'll hardly see any fighting in this movie, it does indeed feels like a true war movie, that obviously cost some bit of money to make.

Also because of its subject and its approach, this still remains a good watch but it's just not as effective as it potential could and perhaps also should had been.

7/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Rosencranz and Gildenstern of the war set

[jsexton-2 · 7/10 · 5 November 2000]

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.

Visual Meditation on Commuting to the Front Lines

[noralee · 7/10 · 12 December 2005]

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)

In response to that other guy.

[adiamantex17 · 9 April 2007]

"Two characters making love sopping in paint on Yom Kippur while everyone else takes part in religious activities. You don't get much more sac-religious than this. So we know this is not a propaganda film."

Except that any film, pro or anti war, can be a propaganda film, sacrilegious or not. Also, to be a great anti-war film, a film needs to be watched and needs to draw viewers to it. This film does not do that. However the director meant the film, I simply saw it as a auto-biographical film about his own life during the Y.K war and not a particularly effective one at that.

A Realistic War Film That Sinks Under Its Realism

[Theo Robertson · 7/10 · 13 June 2013]

In October 1973 during the Jewish festival of Yom Kippur an Arab coalition led by Syria and Egypt launched a pre-emptive strike against Israel . The Israelis wre caught with their pants down and the Eygyptians made initial gains in the south of Israel . Within three days the Israelis managed to rally their forces and by the end of the month the Israelis had managed to deal a decisive blow to the Arabs in general and the Eyptians in particular that Egypt never again threatened Israel . That said the 1973 war remains the closest the Israelis have come to losing a war and this 2000 Israeli film makes a powerful anti-war statement that war is a brutal and terrible thing even for the victors . As Bertrand Russell once said " There's no winners or losers , only survivors "

Congratulations to director Amos Gitai for showing war for what it is . Based upon his own experiences of the conflict this is both straight from the heart and straight from the horses mouth which shows the human cost of conflict . The story centres around a small microcosm of the war where two Israeli soldiers caught up in the chaos volunteer for a medical unit carrying out cavesac of wounded IDF troops

If there's a problem to KIPPUR it's probably too realistic for its own good . The camera doesn't do much , the average shot length is overly long , there's long segments devoid of dialogue and there's little in the way of incidental music . In other words this is a movie that should be studied long and hard at University film classes as an example of realism in cinema , but possibly won't be better known beyond that . By a bitter irony it won't be acclaimed as being an anti-war classic because .... well you know who's going to feel sorry about Israeli soldiers being maimed and killed in a conflict where it's the Arabs who are the aggressors ?

As a footnote one thing that is distracting is the tanks used which are Merkava tanks which didn't enter service until 1979 . In 1973 the Israelis would have been using the British made Centurion as their main battle tank , but that said nearly every single war film you'll ever see has the same type of anachronism where tanks are involved

A Nutshell Review: Kippur

[DICK STEEL · 6/10 · 25 April 2009]

While it's easy to set expectations and think that this could be a Saving Private Ryan / Black Hawk Down type of film (since the synopsis does reveal a chopper going down), this is after all an Amos Gitai film, and I feel this is more Apocalypse Now with The Thin Red Line sensibilities, though with none of Terence Mallick's visual poetry.

Based on Gitai's own experience of joining a helicopter rescue crew during the war of Kippur in 1967, he creates the character of Sergeant Weinraub (Liron Levo, also seen in Disengagement) and it's through his eyes that the story unfolds. The film is curiously bookend by some graphic, artistic (literally, since it involves an incredibly huge canvas and lots of paint) sex, where Weinraub pounds his girlfriend in an extended scene in the beginning, before the outbreak of war with the attack by Egypt and Syria interrupting his moment of passion, and he picks up friend and officer Lt Ruso (Tomer Russo) as they drive back to camp to join their unit.

Along the way they meet a number of characters who flit into and out of the story, and soon find themselves in a camp that they could get to, and volunteering to join a makeshift, hastily assembled helicopter unit to fly to the warzone in order to pick up wounded survivors, kind of like a flying ambulance tasked for rescue missions. We learn a thing or two about emergency evacuations, as well as the policy of not transporting the dead in time-critical missions as these, taking only survivors and sticking to their mission objectives.

If one does not know that Gitai is at the helm of the film, one could expect an out-and-out war movie, since the scenario painted provides plenty of avenue for such. There are flights into the frontline, and in carrying out their mission, Getai litters the screen with plenty of dismembered bodies up close enough to churn your stomach. There are moments where some action is called for, but these are few and far between since our soldiers are unarmed. For those with Gitai sensibilities, then you'll probably note his preference for long takes, and there was one incredibly long sequence involving a traffic jam and narrow roads, when Weinraub and Ruso are rushing back en route to their camp. Otherwise, most of the shots during war involve tight helicopter interiors, or helicopter overhead views, but through narrow windows, capturing scores of tanks in vast, muddy landscapes ravaged by tracks that had gone past, that you can imagine the scale of the invasion with.

Unlike other war films that preach the negative aspects of war, this felt more of a documentary of sorts, since after all it's based upon the director's own experience. Scenes are delivered as a matter-of-fact, sometimes devoid of emotion too as the soldiers go about doing the business, and the plenty of landscape shots are just that and could easily have been representative of news reels back then. Not your conventional war movie, and definitely worthwhile only when the troops hit the ground, and not flying high and far away from the action.

Oy Vey! A Real Stinker!

[angelsunchained · 3/10 · 24 April 2016]

This movie stunk. Scenes that go on and on without any life to it. The first ten minutes shows a couple making love, covered in paint on an art canvas. There is a man walking on an empty street and it goes on and on. Two lost soldiers are driving around for fifteen minutes trying to find their unit. Boring and dull. As for the biggest invasion in Israeli history, no one seems organized or even worried for that matter. The soldiers are not wearing combat helmets in a war zone and come across as dumb and dumber. As for the conversations, they are dull and listless, void of any emotion. Honestly, I found this whole movie unrealistic and totally boring. There isn't any type of character development and the viewer has no connection to any of the characters in the movie. I was hoping for a great film, but all I got was a snore bore. I give it a three only because of some effort from the main two characters. Don't waste your time on this junk.

The Trauma of the October War - Excellant

[shmulik-cohen · 10/10 · 27 October 2003]

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.

Artistic View of War

[jmverville · 6/10 · 3 October 2004]

This film offers more of an artistic view of warfare on a level that one normally does not see; even though the dialog in the film is small, and even though what dialog there is does not focus on the main, overriding theme of the vile nature of war the point is still clearly conveyed by the director's use of his actors and the camera.

Overall, the film could have been much shorter; it was seemingly dragged out at times, and sometimes it seemed downright tiring to watch. However, some of the shots throughout the film were very good, and the story at times can be interesting. But when all is said and done, this is not a very high quality film due to its' unnecessary length and often overly artistic portrayal. The few moments of good cinema in here do not make the whole thing worth watching.

A beautiful but boring and uninspired war(?) movie

[stetur500 · 4/10 · 30 August 2001]

I did not like this movie very much. Maybe because I was so disappointed. I really looked forward to se a film from a great Israeli director, and a movie about a conflict that I have never seen on film before. Sadly, this movie did not deliver any of the tension, horror and emotional intensity that great war movies do. It did not tell an interesting story and it lacked interesting characters and dialogues. It did have one interesting sex scene, with a lot of paint, though.

One thing that struck me was, that despite this is a movie about a war, it only comprehended a few seconds of actual warfare. Most of the time there was endless dragging scenes that only contained waiting, silence or walking around on a muddy field. Actually, there was not much of a plot at all.

This movie is said to be a realistic war movie. Well, I imagine it is realistic in a way, because i believe it's like this war looks like, for the average soldier, in an average war: most of the time nothing happens but waiting and waiting. And when things do happen, it's probably very bad and lasts for a very brief moment.

If you want to see a slow but realistic and terrifying war movie, with more "psychological" than pyrotechnical action; go and see "Das Boot". "Das Boot" is a very intense and touching movie with great acting, and compared to this, "Kippur" is nothing.

But despite the many bad things, this film has some interesting and unusual features. The opening sequence for instance. It´s very beautiful. The movie also gives us a sence of the confusion and anxiety that hit the Israeli people in the opening days of the war, as a result of a carefully planned and executed surprise attack. One other thing is, that it gives some brief examples of the Israeli tanks, like the British built Centurion, and tank tactics used in the Yom Kippur war. Actually, I get a feeling that the film is probably very accurate altogether, when it comes down to details. However, the film never gives away that in reality, the fighting that took place in the Golan area featured one of the largest and most furious tank battles ever. This movie is far from fierce or furious.

Another interesting, but in some aspects unfortunate, feature, is that we are not allowed to see any Syrian soldiers or vehicles at all. In fact, the only enemies that are present, are the confusion, disorder, low moral and lack of information and command within parts of the Israeli army. And the occasional stray bullet (or missile)of course. This storyteller "trick" can be very effective, like in Das Boot (of course), "Blair witch ..." or "Alien", for instance. You never actually se the danger (or almost never), but you know it is there all the time. This can be very effective and thrilling, but unfortunately it's not the result in this movie.

My advise to you is - don't waste time or money on this movie. If you want to see a great war movie; go and see Das Boot, Apocalypse now or The thin red line. And if you are only interested in Israeli tanks, you should probably watch Discovery instead.

Misunderstood

[latinese · 9/10 · 20 October 2004]

Those here who have bashed the film have grossly misunderstood Kippur. Either they look for a blow-blam-bang Holy-wood flick, which it isn't; or for a highly reliable reconstruction (which Save Private Ryan, extolled by some, is only in part: the first scene is almost like-it-really-was, the last scene is blow-blam-bang with Matt Damon and Tom Hanks instead of Chuck Norris and Steven Seagal). Kippur is a highly personal film, in that war is filtered through the very personal point of view of a sophisticated director. Amos Gitai is close to Antonioni; and in directing a war movie he couldn't forget the Lesson of the Master. Hence the minimal dialogue, hence the dilated times, hence the attention to the setting more than the characters. You try to watch Deserto rosso and then Kippur and you'll notice just how much they have in common. Then, if you don't like Antonioni, it's your own business, go for the blow-blam-bang stuff. However, as for action movies, I think Black Hawk Down is better than SPR. I may be wrong...

the in(s)anity of war

[tshary17 · 7/10 · 3 April 2020]

This is compelling for showing how sometimes suddenly wars can begin for no apparent reason, and they can have a devastating effect on the people that fight in them. If you want geopolitical commentary or military realism, you can find documentaries to satisfy you. If you want something closer to a meditation on the ultimate absurdity of war, this will get you thinking. Really, not much happens; people are confused and scared, they fight and get hurt, and a lot of them die. No glorious marches, no battle hymns, no heroes plowing down the enemy (who is never seen here), no solemn soliloquies on the glory of victory. Just banal bloody disgust, like war.

I do agree with the critics who find the parallel opening and closing scenes rather ineffective. There may be a message there about sex, gender, love, paint, bodily fluids, or moisture... but it seems too disconnected from the rest of the action and style of the film.

a big disappointment...

[chimeira · 1/10 · 26 July 2001]

Kippur was a big disappointment for me, to see such an experienced director like Gitai come up with such a poor film like this. The opening scene -the boy running in the deserted streets during war time- was really very beautiful. The shot was very successful, with great direction talent. Then, after this scene, little waves of disappointment started to flow through me. Firstly in the scene where the boy and his girlfriend were making love in the paint, the music was so inappropriate and annoying and the scene took too long. Having seen the same guy in these first two scenes, I thought ''ok, he is the leading guy''. And in all movies, you feel the need to sympathize with a character in order to be able to get yourself in the movie. This is how you can feel for the people in the film, and how you can get into the director's head. Anyway. What I felt all through Kippur was not a sense of sympathy for any of the actors, but rather that the film was like a parade of people wandering around. No one was the leading character. One character comes up and says something important and you never see him again. One character begins telling a story in one scene, yet he does not continue with it in the rest of the movie and you try so hard to figure out where that should belong in the film as a whole. Dialogues were very poor. The sentimental side of the war was trying to be conveyed to the audience obviously, but the words used were so poor at describing soldiers' feelings. Most scenes were so unnecessarily long, long silences didn't carry any meaning, and editing was very bad %90 of the time. As for the ending, it was so plain and so poor. Not only could I not sympathize with a character, I also could not get that feeling of relief when the guy returned to her girlfriend and they started making love again. At the start they made love, in the middle he made war, and at the end, love again. This was not such a unique idea and especially when it's tried to be given in such unsuccessful and wrong ways, a great disappointment is caused for the audience. I had hoped to ''feel'', but I couldn't unfortunately. The film lacked that emotion and philosophy.

Having seen an excellent movie like Thin Red Line, I cannot help but compare and contrast Kippur with that. The weakness of Kippur is highlighted then. I absolutely felt something during Thin Red Line -the war, the pain, the anguish, the lightness of death and all- especially in the final scene where the leading actor James Caviezel -there was a leading actor there- was floating free in the water and talking freely in his mind, I felt something in my throat, keeping me on the edge of crying. I felt him, I felt what the director meant, I felt the war, I felt the movie. Thin Red Line is an incomparably successful war film. I have seen Saving Private Ryan too, a beautiful film more showing the war zone and with great special effects, but Thin Red Line is the one in my all time favorites.

Not everything that starts well goes well...

Probably the best anti-war film ever.

[kwhatever55 · 5 May 2004]

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.

Aye Aye Aye

[frindegill · 2/10 · 17 November 2003]

That's all I have to say, finally an Israeli film with some noticable budget and they blew it. Having been from Israel and a filmmaker as well all I can say is that I was extremely disappointed with the film. First of all- the story takes place in a war, yet it is never felt by the audience that the characters are in any kind of danger. The camera work is so lame that I was ashamed. The beginning of the film tried to show the shock and lack of readyness by the Israelis to the surprise attack on Yom Kippur, yet the scene was made so bad that we could not know and get the feeling of what really happened mainly because tight shots were used and there was no way of establishing what happened. Towards the end there is a scene that they are struggling in the mud to take out an injured soldier, the scene is shot in one long (ver long) take it is unrealistic, I served in the Israeli military it takes about 30 seconds to evacuate an injured soldier, that scene took ten minutes and did not show the training of the Israeli military which is the best in the world.

And now for the story- I understand that the story is based on a real one but everyone has a story (a war story in Israel) and most of them are not interesting, there was NO character development, very boring dialogues and no real relations established between the characters To sum up if you got 2 hours to spend go see other films you will be disappointed Waste of time

"Kippur" is an intense film showcasing the horror of war with grim elegance.

[Chavie · 10/10 · 16 September 2000]

"Kippur" throws you into the stark reality of war without a morality lesson or the feeling of vindication of films such as "Saving Private Ryan". And it does so with almost beautiful horror. There is no comment, no explanation, and you never see the enemy; tanks dance across the muddy, barren landscape accentuating the terrible meaningless loss of life. The detachment between the characters during the long day on the front evacuating the wounded clashes with the warmth shown even between strangers off the battlefield. This movie is very powerful due to its unedited and unabridged style. A must see.

It's bad. Avoid at all costs.

[featurefilm · 1/10 · 14 February 2002]

When I screened Kippur, I was very enthusiastic. I had waited a long time to finally be able to see it.

Huge disappointment.

There is no story line. No acting. No directing. No Camera work. Nothing with the exception of a constant annoying helicopter hummer and the never-ending noise of a diesel engine.

Save time. Avoid the movie.

Strange Movie About the Yom Kippur War.

[rmax304823 · 5/10 · 28 February 2009]

A docudrama about two young Israeli men who help evacuate the wounded from the battlefield and at the end are themselves hurt when their helicopter is downed.

That's about it for the plot.

The film is aesthetically ambitious though. It thrives on its imagery. I haven't seen so many looooong and static shots since Hitchcock's experiments in the late 1940s. Even Ozu would be weirded out by these exhausting scenes during which, for most of the time, nothing much is happening. Men shout over the noise of the battlefield and slog through the mud from one place to another place that's ten feet away. Even after the credits, when we see a man and woman rolling around and having sex on a bed splashed with paints of different colors, the scene goes on and on and on while a saxophone ululates a little mournfully behind them. It's no more erotic than the shifting textures of the loving couple in "Hiroshima, mon Amour." A bit of the background of the two men is sketched in, but not much, so we can't really identify with them. The only other soldier I was able to distinguish was the doctor, and that was because he looked like Francis Ford Coppola.

There are absolutely no clichés to be found. They're fighting the Syrians but we never see any, and the enemy is mentioned only once or twice, and then matter-of-factly, not with bitterness or hatred. There is virtually no banter between the men, the kind that we've become so used to. No jokes. No mail call. Just a winter landscape that is foggy, cold, muddy, and altogether inhospitable. Most of us, when we think of Israel, that lonesome Western outlier, think of it as it is during the tourist season, all sunshine and golden grass. But in winter, Mediterranean climates can be as miserable as anywhere else, as any good Californian can tell you.

Speaking of the Mediterranean -- and I'm glad you brought it up -- the film gives us a fairly clear picture of citizens in the Circum-Mediterranean cultural region at war. Here are these Jews running around, shouting and waving their hands and arguing, while the helicopters put-put-put ear-splittingly next to them and the tanks rumble past like diesel trucks. (On the other side, the Syrians are undoubtedly doing the same.) This is 1967 and the men are sloppy and long-haired, and they're good warriors all. What would General Patton with his spit-and-polish have made of this? Most impressive scene. The two men arrive late at a briefing before going to the front. The officer in charge is a bit irritated and asks one of them what he can contribute to the effort now underway. The man gets to his feet, looking a little shy, and says weakly, "Well, we've been trained for this duty. If we have a pilot and another man we will do the job perfectly." Something like that. His demeanor is completely at odds with his confident reply.

It's by no means an uninteresting movie. It's just that the director and the editor overreached themselves and have slowed the tempo down to a funereal pace. There were times when I found myself hoping that the mail call cliché would take place so the men could read letters from their sweethearts back home and joke with one another.

Aimless maneuvers in the mud

[chaos-rampant · 25 March 2013]

The Yom Kippur war almost caught Israel unawares. Twenty days later they were across the Suez 100km from Cairo and near as many from Damascus, another disaster for the Arabs. In a strange turn of events however, the surprise attack and doom-laden buildup to it, with thousands of graves dug in anticipation, had a devastating effect on the country, in effect signaling a perpetual state of fear and alert.

I am in the middle of exploring through films these bumps in the national mind, which brought me here. For what it's worth, the filmmaker has decided to capture an experience of war as purely about what it means to be there as he can. He knows, he was there.

Sadly, it's flat beyond belief. For better or worse I found it to be nothing like Thin Red Line, as others have mentioned in their comments. Whereas Malick spins war to be one of conflicting urges in the soul, this is what we see, two hours of med- evacs carrying the wounded.

There's one contemplative image in the film, a helo shot of a muddy battlefield with maneuvering tanks drawing meaningless patterns on the mud, contrasted with the early shot of the lush mingling of painted sex evocative of life, color, imagination, spontaneity. It's a great shot, and perfectly describes both what the film wants to portray, a sort of aimless cosmos, and what it ends up with—aimless doodling on the ground.

So the filmmaker reminisces in film about a time and place that allowed no skyward gaze. The important message is that war is as wasteful and pointless to happen in real life as it is to watch in this film.

Boring, Plain and Simple

[ynhockey · 1/10 · 22 July 2005]

While I can appreciate the message that the director was trying to get through with this movie, while watching I was constantly reminded of how boring the movie was, and how I could be doing something better than watching it, for instance, watching fish in a tank.

The camera work was bad, the story... what story? And the little character development that was there didn't make any impression on me at all.

Being from Israel myself, I had very high hopes for this movie, but Gitai flat-out blew it.

Back to the point of the movie - I believe it was trying to portray how war is terrible, especially for the common soldier. However, Gitai failed on all accounts: firstly, the viewer never feels sorry for the main characters, because they're never in danger and never lose anyone they really care about. Secondly, in his crusade to portray war as terrible, he completely destroys the image of the Israeli army. Thirdly, and this is probably the most important, the main characters (Russo and Weinrub) don't die, but return home safely. It's as if, right at the end, Gitai spit on his message, and decided to create a new one: nightmares happen, but eventually they're over and life returns to the way it used to be.

Whatever you do, don't see this movie. Not only is it bad, but it's also plain boring. Movies are meant for entertainment, or for provoking thought, or both. This film provides neither.

An excellent film - the Israeli version of Saving Private Ryan

[mlong-4 · 9/10 · 8 September 2000]

This was an excellent film. It was a straight-forward, realistic and non-sensantionalized telling of the Yom Kippur war, from the unique perspective of an Israeli helicopter rescue team.

This form of fictionalized documentary is similar to Speilberg's Saving Private Ryan, in that the film goes to great length to bring the reality of war to the viewing audience. In line with many modern war films, it reveals the true chaotic face of war. While the special effects don't compare to Private Ryan, the film thankfully lacks the sentimentalism and hackneyed plot of the Speilberg megahit. While the very long and dragging scenes slow down the movie at several points, it does capture those tense and trying moments that soldiers must endure, those moments, good or bad, which seem to last an eternity.

In short, this film attempts to document a traumatic time in Israeli history, and pass on to the viewer the sights, sounds and emotions for their posterity, free from rhetoric or patriotic flag waving. I think this is one of the most noble pursuits of film, and was carried out craftily and honestly by Amos Gitai.

Kippur

[jboothmillard · 5/10 · 10 June 2013]

This was a film featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I assumed it was something to do with war from the picture and DVD cover I saw, but either way it was an Israeli film I looked forward to trying. Basically it is set in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War between Egypt and Syria, specifically the Day of Atonement, the countries launched attacks in Sinai and the Golan Heights, and the story is told from the point of view of the Israeli soldiers. Leading the audience into the story and the quiet city streets are friends Weinraub (Liron Levo) and Ruso (Tomer Russo), and through their journey during the war they, along with other soldiers, witness mass death, destruction and devastation both in their minds and on the surface. Also starring Uri Ran Klauzner as Klausner, Yoram Hattab as The Pilot and Juliano Merr- Khamis as The Captain. The film is not a traditional war movie with blood, guts and glory, there are many scenes full of surrealism and sequences that give you an insight into the effects a war can cause, whether it be with the graphic and repetitive imagery or with the intriguing use of sound, it may not be the most gripping of films, but is an interesting enough war drama based on a true story. Worth watching!

Not a "war movie," but an "immediate after-effect of war movie" (SPOILERS!)

[zardoz12 · 20 September 2002]

As others have written, "Kippur" is about two IDF soldiers of the 1973 Yom Kippur war who can't find their unit and join up with helicopter medevac group. Thus we do not see the war, but what happens minutes or hours after the lead stops flying. I think "Kippur" is closer to reality than most war pictures because the men say little, we don't know much about them (except for the doctor), and boredom is rule. The director spends five excruciating minutes showing us how the men extricate a wounded and unconscious soldier from a huge mudhole; they keep dropping him, and have to pick him up without a stretcher and drag him to a dry spot. We never see the enemy, and there is but one scene of action in the entire film (and I can't give it away.) "Kippur" is definitly for the war film afficionado who wishes to see the aftermath or the peacenik who knows the futility of armed conflict, and wants to see two hours of it.

And they got paid to do this film????

[greena-1 · 20 June 2004]

Where do I sign up???? I can produce a movie with MUCH better quality and I'm not even a director much less in the film industry!!! In the comments I read earlier, someone hit the nail on the head and pointed out that there was no real sense of danger. I laugh at those people who thought that this film was realistic. Realistic my ass!!! To quote what someone said earlier, there was no acting, no plot, and to add to this, the affects were cheesy at best!!! The helicopter being shot down for example. One initial blast and then another later on, this didn't match the story the pilot explained to the doctor. Again, no sense of danger. And where was all the debris, where were the helicopter blades on the topfof the helicopter? And the battle scenes? all they did was grab 4 or 5 Israeli tanks and wheel them back and forth. I managed to see ONE tank fire a shot at some point. PLEASE!!! I'm not even IN the army and I'm quite sure that is NOT the way you fight a battle.

You want to see REALISTIC!!!???? you want to see a REAL anti war film? Then you go watch PRIVATE RYAN, NOW THAT IS A MOVIE! The scenes in the movie were so realistic is brought back a lot of memories and shock thatto the veterans that watched the movie and were there. If they say it was realistic, then that's good enough for me.