Boring

best movie i've ever seen.

Absolutely Brilliant!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This film underwhelmed me despite good acting. It's basically a detective/mystery story as to why this doctor's wife became a suicide bomber. It's set in Tel Aviv, and then in Nablus. The Doctor takes it upon himself to investigate why his wife became a suicide bomber. In the end we are left with little to go on. We are given cryptic answers from the imam and then a Catholic priest. It would seem that this man did not know about this hidden life of his wife. That is what we are left with and it struck me as somewhat implausible. There is nothing particularly revealing or said about the motivations of a suicide bomber, or the personality traits of this kind of mentality. We are given a lot of loose ends that don't add up. It all seemed too fictitious for my taste. The ending is not conclusive.

The Attack (2012) was co-written and directed by Ziad Doueiri. This is a dark and troubling film about a dark and troubling situation--the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. The gifted actor Ali Suliman plays Dr. Amin Jaafari, a Muslim surgeon who has chosen to live and work in Tel Aviv. He is so successful that he receives a prestigious medical honor from the Israelis. His world is shattered when his wife is killed in a terrorist attack. As if that's not horror enough, his wife is accused of being the suicide bomber who triggered the explosion.After that, we follow the protagonist as he tries to learn the truth about what role--if any--his wife played in the bombing.I think this is an excellent film--well written, well directed, and well acted. I'm not an expert in Middle East politics, but I think the movie was made stronger by the director's refusal to take sides in the tense Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A friend who is an expert in the area told me that the Israeli population is not monolithically opposed to the Palestinian cause. An entire spectrum of beliefs about the conflict and its solution is found in Israeli. Unfortunately, here in the United States opinion is much more rigid and monolithic.The only fault I found with the movie is that sometimes the plot wasn't completely clear to me. It was probably crystal clear to someone who knows the situation and the languages, but I don't, so I wasn't always sure exactly what was happening. Other than that, the film was truly superb. The Attack carries a modest 6.7 IMDb rating. Don't be thrown off by that rating--it's too low. I gave the film a rating of 9, and could easily have given it a 10.)This is a movie worth seeking out and seeing. Just be prepared to be discouraged by the political reality of a problem that apparently doesn't have a solution.

"Who knows the secrets of the human heart?" The Crying Game.Three tales comprise this simple, beautiful, and harrowing drama of a Palestinian doctor, Ali Suliman (Amin Jaafari), working in Tel Aviv and receiving the equivalent of the Israeli "medical Oscar." What a fine metaphor, you say, of hope for peace between these warring peoples! Yes, but why is his wife, Siham (Reymond Amsalem), not there to share in his finest professional moment? The Attack is first of all about a terrorist act, for she is preparing to become a Palestinian martyr at the expense of 17 Tel Aviv civilians' lives and numerous maimed women and children. The reality of this tale is that such attacks are common but not so easily explained except that two populations hate each other enough to commit mayhem the reason for which no one can really understand beyond the obvious territoriality.Second, it's an attack on the brilliant doctor's understanding of human nature as he assesses how he knew nothing for their 15 married years about what would lead her to become a suicide bomber. In thematic terms, the fathomless mystery lives on about how well we know those closest to us (see opening quote) and by extension, how well the Israelis and Palestinians know each other.Third, The Attack is about understanding the wall between Israel and Palestine that makes collaboration such as in the opening medical award scene a fantasy for two peoples in a terrorist state of mind. Slowly the film allows the hatred and suspicion to seep into each frame with a subtlety so graceful as almost to be unseen and unfelt. Never does the film descend into melodrama or hysteria.The Attack is an understated masterpiece focusing on the emerging awareness of a doctor that the violence he tends to in the hospital is closer at home, but he learns too late. That is probably the most effective part of Lebanese writer/director Ziad Doueiri's vision: We can't understand terror in part because it hides itself until it explodes on the scene.Although the Arab League asked for a boycott of the film because the director violated a Lebanese policy forbidding work by its citizens in Israel, the league may have missed the film's somewhat benign treatment of Siham and her cause. Truth be told, though, neither Israel nor Palestine is the bad team in this film. Rather, the bad is the ignorance that fosters violence in the name of liberty. Such a lack of awareness assures there will always be attacks.The only hope I found is in Screen Comment's final assessment of the film itself as an emblem of cooperation: "Witness the coming together of a crew as talented, as diverse and as honest as that of 'The Attack,' bringing us this unflinching testimony of a situation to which the world has unfortunately become inured but which will have to find a solution some day."

Seldom comes a movie that keeps you glued to the screen without the need of some fancy special effect or camera move; one that has a story that is universal, involving, complex, and devastating. Here is the eternal conflict, one that continues despite our supposed maturing and evolving into much better characters.A successful doctor suddenly finds himself in the middle of a big mess as his wife might or not have committed a brutal act of terrorism. As the plot unfolds and he's inevitably questioned, more and more questions arise. Some of these are inquiries by the authorities who want to capture any other parties. Most of the ones the film deals with, are apparently of a personal nature for this is a love story between a man and his wife. This love story, however, has ended badly, and the mystery will be resolved by the end of the film.The doctor continues to suffer and slowly see his perfect universe fall apart as he discovers more and more of the truths that have surrounded him for a long time, yet he might not have wanted to see or acknowledge. The film delivers each one of them like a hard slap to his face, and it is painful to see that it's difficult to place a 100% of the blame on anyone, and that is equally impossible to justify any of the actions taken by anyone here. There are moments when one goes through a range of emotions similar to the main character, and this where this film excels for we learn to discover more than we might want to know.The film explores the cultural, political, and social differences between two types of people, and even at first, we can catch one furtive look from someone who is not happy with the success of the doctor. This gets more intense and clear as the investigation continues, and here the man is a pariah not wanted by anyone because he can't understand what happened, what is happening or what will happen. As usual, there is plenty of ignorance at the heart of the conflict, and the dialog in the film illustrates a lot of this. More and more questions continue to arise as the film nears its conclusion.There are many beautiful scenes in the movie, trying to explain the relationship between the doctor and his wife, and we keep wondering how it was possible that the events led to the attack. In the end, things become more clear, but questions remain, and they will continue as long as we fail to heal and embrace each other, finding a common ground, recognizing the similarities rather than the differences.Great film.