d-shayne Reviews

O Jerusalem (2006)

inaccurate and sanitized version of history and a lousy film

[19 May 2009]

My major gripe is not the slant, the film was not a propaganda screed for either side, but it is so inaccurate as to be nearly worthless. First, any one who spent any time in Israel will note immediately that it was not filmed there, the scenes do not remotely resemble the real sites where the events of 1948 took place. Major facts are fumbled--e.g., the Jewish Quarter of the Old City fell long before the first cease-fire (from the movie, it is hard to tell exactly what happened). In another scene, right before the Partition vote travelers are shown on a modern-style glass bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem--going over a non-existent river--with Arabs and Jews on the same bus!

The acting is TV-grade melodrama and the script is trite.

As for the overview-historical content, the movie falls to illuminate the events the lead up to the conflict--and with the single exception of the depiction of Deir Yassin, makes it seem as though the war was fought between a handful of well-meaning nice guys. But the 1948 war was bloody and ugly, with many atrocities committed on both sides, but especially the Arab side that was trying to wipe out the Jewish community of Palestine (later Israel).

Finally, as already pointed out, this movie does horrible violence to LaPierre and Collins' fine book, one of the few truly even-handed non-fiction books written about the Arab-Israel conflict (In the trailer, even this was mangled as the book is called a "novel").

If any one wants to see a much better movie covering almost the exact same topic get "Cast a Giant Shadow."

Occupied Minds (2006)

Occupied Minds is crude, anti-Israel propaganda

[1/10 · 29 June 2008]

This documentary was blatant anti-Israel (and in some parts actually anti-Jewish) propaganda. The film's makers recruited an anti-Israel "Israeli"(Michaelis-he is really an American living in San Francisco) to give the film a false patina of objectivity. There is nothing fair, balanced or objective about this film. It opens up with the primary Arab protagonist (Dajani-also an American) complaining about the horrible things that happened to Arabs in 1948, including his family--while blithely omitting the apparently unimportant fact that the Arabs, not the Jews, launched the war that caused his family's problems. Ditto the occupation itself, which began when 3 Arab States tried to destroy Israel in 1967, forcing Israel to occupy the territories. This is just one of many examples the distortions and half- truths through which this film only sows confusion instead of shedding light on a complex political and social problem. Dajani berates his Jewish targets (he really angers Meron Ben Vineste, who is actually very moderate in views and generally sympathetic to the Palestinian plight), he obscenely compares Israel's anti-Terrorist barrier to the Nazi-built wall around the Warsaw Ghetto (A prelude to the holocaust), he equates suicide bombings with military operations intend to prevent suicide bombings, while Michaelis never utters a word of protest or disagreement with Dajani's distortions but mostly is seen nodding sagely. There are also some serious production flaws--for example, an Arab terrorist makes numerous remarks in Arabic that are not translated (but when he speaks in Hebrew it is--I'd like to know what he said in Arabic). This is a great movie for any one who hates Israel and does not care about truth or fairness. Otherwise, its garbage.