The Holy Land (2001) User Reviews

Do you know how much it hurts knowing that I'm not attractive to you

[sol-kay · 6/10 · 9 July 2006]

**SPOILERS** Well meaning but somewhat poorly constructed movie that has to do with relationships between Israelis and Palestinians and a 20 year-old rabbinical student Mendy, Oren Rehany, and 19 year old Ukrainian hooker Sasha, Tehelet Semei. Sasha immigrated to Israel to find work and later get a passport so she can travel to where she really wan't to live and spend the rest of her life in the United States.

The movie "Holy Land" has some of the best scenes ever filmed in the holy and old city of Jerusalem with it's many holy sites like the Wailing Wall Mount of Olives and the Dome of the Rock. The movie also shows the city's seedy areas that you won't see or find in any official Israeli Government tourist guide advertising it. Mendy suffering from growing pains is obsessed with reading, or better yet looking at the pictures, girlie magazines. This has the principle of his rabbinical school Reb Nocham, Alon Dahan,suggests that he go out one evening after school to the red light district of Tel Aviv and relive all his pent up pressures and tensions by having a tryst with a hooker. Mendy going to this strip joint called "The Love Boat" meets and falls in love with one of the strippers there Sasha who later Mendy finds out to his shock and surprise, like he couldn't figure it out in under ten seconds after he first met her, that she's a also a part-time hooker.

Mendy also meets at "The Love Boat" what turns out to be Sasha's boyfriend a transplanted American Jew and combat photographer Mike, Saul Stein. Mike after you and Mendy get to really know him, when he finally sobers up, is a real swell and good natured guy who'ed give you the shirt right off his back if you needed it and if he still has one on to give. Mendy gets caught up with Sahsha who he later finds out, after having a violent falling out with her,is only stringing him along. Mendy also gets involved in Jerusalem with Mike by working as a bartender at his nightclub "Mikes Place". There he meets a whole bunch of shandy characters like an Israeli ultra-nationalist who calls himself The Exterminator, Aryeh Monskona. Another one of Mike's regular costumers that he meets is the very friendly and personable Palestinian Arab to both Mike and The Exterminator Razi,Albert Ilo. Razi will later be responsible for Mendy's and some score of other Israelis deaths in a suicide, not by Razi himself of course, bus bombing.

The fine acting in the movie "Holy Land" more then makes up for it's somewhat disjointed story-line. Both Mendy and Sasha, Oren Rehany & Tehelet Semei,really click together in all the scenes that their in even though there's no sex at all in them. In that Mendy, being brought up as a very religious and orthodox Jew, is just too bashful and intimidated by the very experienced and aggressive non-Jewish Shasa.

Saul Stein steals almost every scene that he's in the movie with his multi- layered portrayal of bar owner and all around good time guy Mike. Stein does a very good as well as Jewish or kosher imitation of Hollywood acting legend Humphrey Bogart who he's obviously styled after. In the end Mendy sees that the life he choose as a free and swinging young secular Israeli isn't for him with him breaking up with Shasa and saying good-by to Mike. Mendy, leaving his broken heart behind in Jerusalem, hops on a bus going back to his parents home outside Tel Aviv but sadly and tragically never makes it out alive of Jerusalem's city limits.

Occasional intrigue in the performances and atmosphere of life in modern day Jerusalem...

[Quinoa1984 · 5/10 · 19 August 2003]

...but first time writer/director Eitan Gorlin, adapting from his own play, takes too much for granted in the destinies of his characters, a rabbinical student and a Russian prostitute, as well as for the supporting players. There could be so much that could happen to these characters, so many different turns they could take in their relationship, and while it unfolds as something that's somewhat acceptable, it contains an outcome that's a too pre-ordained.

The set-up has minor promise- a rabbinical student is told by his teacher that he should let off some steam, so to speak, by paying a trip to a whorehouse around in Tel Aviv before completely immersing himself in his studies (to get it out of his system). He meets a prostitute, and a Mike, a drunk who owns a bar in Jerusalem and who also gives a place to live for his girl as, soon enough, as well as for the student. Eventually, the student works as a bartender, meets the locals, the radicals, and sees for himself what it's like in such a landscape. Among this, an amicable, though non-sexual relationship commences with the the two opposites- the student awkward and introspective and the prostitute sarcastic and (when she needs to be) emotional.

I can't say that I hated the Holy Land, because there seemed to be a earnest urgency to show, in good intentions, what it's like in the city against the thinking of Americans of the region. It's dangerous terrain, but it's not like how the media here portrays it exactly. And while our lead character comes of age by drinking and smoking and being among these people and all that, he leaves without much of a change in him, or towards the girl he has admired and adored for the length of the picture. In other words, it may be pretty hard to care about these people as much as Gorlin wants us to, and it's evident that it gets too conventional for its own good (the ending, especially, seems like it has a need for closure that it shouldn't of had). Grade: C

Just another Love story

[vishal_wall · 7/10 · 6 December 2006]

Its a deceiving plot. Through out the film you are made to feel that you are watching a political thriller but its just a regular love story. The only difference is that all the characters draw their references from political scenario in which they are living. That makes this film interesting. Techelet Semel as Natasha is just too good. She is unbelievably good. Oren Rehany as Mendy is also very cool. Film has a lot of sexual content. Ending is also a quick wrap up. There are a few things that you wanna check out like outdoor scenes etc. Mood of the film is bold. Language is a problem as most actors have growling voices and they speak incomprehensible English. I think its nice but not in the same league as 'paradise now' or 'Time of favor'. Watch it only if you don't mind watching a love story because basically its that.

award-winning brilliant first film by Eitan Gorlin

[gcatelli · 13 September 2003]

i almost missed this gem of a movie. a number of critics have damned it with faint praise. fortunately, a lawyer friend of mine, Mike, had no particular interest in anything else currently showing. so, he agreed to see it with me, because it would count as "my pick" -- meaning that he would have the next pick.

"The Holy land" is a coming of age story. but the protagonist, Mendy, is not just any run-of-the-mill naif. he is a rabbinical student in Tel Aviv, and the scion of a line of ultra-orthodox rabbis. his family is wonderfully wholesome, while Mendy is unbearably horny. the head rabbi at his yeshiva, noting Mendy's inability to concentrate on his studies, cites a passage in the Talmud (while denying that he is advising it) that states that a young man who visits a professional female companion will come away more focused on his religious studies.

Mendy does not need to have his arm twisted. soon he finds a strip joint, goes in, meets the charming and beautiful Sasha, and falls in love with her. through Sasha he meets Mike, a larger than life character who owns a bar in Jerusalem where stock Arab and Jewish characters seamlessly mix in a sort of bizarre version of "Cheers".

it is a timeless story about the conflict in the soul of every young adult (who has a pulse) between the idealistic pull from above to transcend our human nature, and the tug from below to experience the pleasures of the flesh precisely at that point in life when we are most able to enjoy them. having been raised as an ultra-orthodox Jew, Mendy has grown up in a culture second to none in its seriousness about avoiding the distractions of the secular world. yet, as an intelligent and sensitive young man, Mendy can't help but be elated by seeing the maps in an atlas, to give just one example of how sheltered his life had been before then.

Oren Rehany deserves an Oscar for his performance as Mendy. he wordlessly conveys more emotion with the expressions on his face than most actors can deliver in a full blown soliloquy. Tchelet Semel, as Sasha, is not just "the girl". she's a fully developed character, with youth, beauty, and a mother back in Russia who needs money to pay for heat in the winter.

and, all of this takes place against the backdrop of Jerusalem -- site of the world's longest running battle for the soul of man. so, what's the catch? the catch is that you can't dramatize the conflict between the sacred and the profane if you leave out the profane. and, if you love Israel, you may feel uncomfortable with a film that spends so much time on the dark side of life there, especially the IDF's routine treatment of Palestinians. (who wouldn't be uncomfortable seeing the warts of one's beloved displayed on the big screen?) but, if you can get beyond that, this movie is well worth seeing.

oh, Mike was very grateful that i picked this movie ;-)

Well... The *girl* was cute.

[Nmbr6 · 1/10 · 9 August 2003]

I'm originally *from* Israel. I was born there and lived there until I was 11, when my parents moved us to California.

And the nicest thing I can think to say about this movie is that the female lead was cute.

Every single character in this movie was a stereotype. Every single character in this movie was fairly unlikable. Most of the main characters were scheming and backhanded. The overall message I got from the movie was that everyone in Israel is scummy and that this will never change, that no one there is capable of overcoming, of transcending... The hatred and anger and backhanded schemingness.

Another important thing to point out is that despite all this evil, the movie's pace was *tremendously* slow and completely monotonous. I went to see this with my father, and when the movie started there were maybe... 10 people in the theater. By the time it ended, my father and I were alone.

And my father had fallen asleep.

Not Produced or Sponsored by the Israel Tourist Agency

[lawprof · 8/10 · 12 July 2003]

[See the IMDb page for this film for the cast - none are known in the U.S.]

"The Holy Land" is a stark, unusual, powerful gaze at Israel's dark underbelly of drugs, prostitution, zany and not necessarily sane Jewish settlers (some are American expatriates) and Palestinians who maintain relations with Jews.

Conventional love stories often provide the backdrop for a director's vision of political turbulence and strife. This one's a bit off the radar screen. Mendy is a yeshiva student expected to spend (waste in my view) his life studying dense tomes of arcane lore and law while producing nothing of value to anyone. An inquiring young man who senses the imprisoning limitations of his religious culture, he reads "profane" literature and masturbates in his bathroom while his ultra-Orthodox parents prepare festive holiday meals. His mother emigrated to Israel from the states and there met her husband. The couple is a caricature of a fundamentalist lifestyle in which everything is regulated and little is understood.

On the advice of a seedy rabbi who sees Mendy isn't with the yeshiva program, he goes to a bar that is a slim cover for prostitution. He meets, receives manual release from and falls in love with a hooker, Sasha, a Russian. She's pretty, cynical and knows how to work a besotted kid.

Their turbulent relationship takes them across Jerusalem where they spend a lot of time in "Mike's Place," a gin mill where Palestinians and Jews are equally welcome as long as they check their firearms behind the bar.

"Mike's Place" is in the tradition of Rick's Cafe but quite a few rungs lower on the ladder of civilized life. The interactions of the bar denizens are interesting and highlight the reality of Israel's unsteady and contentious pluralities. Some of the interactions between members of different (and differing) groups would be funny except there's little to laugh at here.

Director Eilan Gorlin pulls off the difficult task of involving the viewer not just with travelogue quality shots of Jerusalem (obligatory Wailing Wall scenes, of course) but by injecting a particular thought that the watcher can't escape. Are all these people what they seem to be? Or is each, perhaps excepting the horny deserter from Talmud studies, a husbander of secrets, some very dark?

This movie was made several years ago and had a very limited circulation. The bar in the film was actually the scene of a recent terrorist attack according to a theater-lobby posted story. I don't know how widely it will be available in this re-release.

"The Holy Land" (and I wondered if sarcasm underlay the title) is disturbing and engrossing. New and improved peace plans can be floated weekly but this film conveys, without overt preaching of political views, the maelstrom that is Israel today.

An important film.

8/10.

Trite and unoriginal

[edmontdantes · 4/10 · 27 November 2005]

The holy land begins with an unoriginal scene - a child being born - and ends with an original sequence (the main characters are all depicted in their misery and the main character is .....(American beauty). In between there is a mish mush of uneven ideas and plots lines that are never fully developed.

In seeing "Holy Land" I was really hoping to find something closer to the truth of the seedy and multifaceted society that is modern Israel. But like the film's main character, a naive young Hassidic Jew, the film is clueless and only offers a shallow glance at a few people none of whom (except for the Russian prostitute) really represent the groups that they attempt to depict. The direction is mediocre at best and so is the writing (the worst points come when the concept of God is brought up and rather than attempting to honestly ruminate on this idea the writer merely uses it to move the romantic plot line). The acting is also bad except for the Russian Prostitute who actually does an excellent job portraying the conflicting emotions both through verbal and non verbal expressions. Ironically, she also has the best lines in the movie and her character is closest to the reality of the many Russian expatriate women who are forced to sell their body (and, one could argue, their soul) to escape the chains of poverty that bind their homelands.

But despite the talented actress' best attempts even her character falls flat in the utterly unbelievable sequence that serves as the denouement of the movie. The Orthodox boy confronts her for, essentially, being a prostitute (although the entire point of the movie is that he sees her as a prostitute with a heart of gold) and she leaves him. Atrocious. I wasted two hours of my life.

Excellent, thought-provoking

[fuzzycraig · 9/10 · 23 August 2003]

Terrific acting and solid writing bolster this coming-of-age tale set in pre-intifada Israel, a morally corrupt place, where nobody seems to be doing the right thing. Particularly interesting is the teenage prostitute Sacha, through whom we see the psychological effects of continued sexual exploitation. Though this is not a story about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, per se, the conflict remains constantly in the background, further complicating the moral landscape. This is not a political film about who's right and who's wrong in the middle east, but rather a personal film about individuals trying to find their way in a particularly insane corner of the world.

Awful

[Casablanca3784 · 2/10 · 3 August 2003]

Went to see this film with three other couples and not one of us eight thought it was worth anything. It sure does show the seedy side of Israel, the nude pole dancer and hooker Sasha plying her trade were quite unusual pitted against the pais swinging Talmudic students and scholarly Rabbis and all against the backdrop of the never ending civil strife with the Palestinians however it was so darn draggy and monotonous,the whole thing became unbearable.

And the ending proved that no matter how congenial to one another Jews and Arabs are,it's superficial and meaningless. I would say the film was certainly pro-Palestinian made by Jews over there who resent their own "occupation" of a land foretold as theirs. A land over which they died in wars foisted upon them by the Arabs who resented any "flowers" growing amid their desolate sand dunes. And the beat goes on until there is once again a major war which is inevitable.

Haunted by History -- and "Blue Angel"

[noralee · 6 August 2003]

"Holy Land" tells a story as old as the Bible, and in films certainly as old as "The Blue Angel," in a nerd's obsession with a scarlet woman.

The twist is the obsession is at an incendiary intersection, of secular Tel Aviv vs observant Jerusalem, of old-fashioned and religious vs modern and profane Israeli Jews, of American and Russian immigrants with starkly opposite motivations from fanaticism to economic opportunity, of Arabs vs Jews, of intellectuals vs thugs, of terrorists of all kinds of ages and beliefs and tactics vs burned-out drunks.

In a place obsessed with history, each character is trying to lose the individual past that haunts them, and ends up trapped by it. The story is powerful, based on the writer/director Eitan Gorlin's original novella, but is hampered by execution in poor quality technical production with some amateur actors.

It has some similarities to other recent films, being somewhat more sympathetic to the Orthodox lifestyle than the rabidly prejudiced "Kadosh" (here the yeshiva boy's tearful reaction to the casually cruel cutting of his forelocks was really moving), and was like "Lilja 4-ever" in showing how psychically manipulative is the exploitation of former Eastern Bloc women.

It seems that what all the cultures of the Mideast have in common is unbridled lust such that they end up agreeing on "Where is God? He's in your dick."

In the mix of languages even within a single sentence and accents, I appreciated the presence of subtitles whenever it wasn't clear what was being said.

Awful

[dsh26 · 1/10 · 7 August 2003]

If you're not Jewish or have not been to Israel and you're looking for a film that will give you a flavor of either, skip this one entirely. Not only is it full of clichés and stereotypes, but it's simply incoherent. And not in a good way.

Why does this film have distribution at all? It has a juicy one-liner which makes it easy to advertise: "Orthodox yeshiva boy falls for Russian prostitute..." And because there's a whiff of controversy and some T&A, I'm sure some festival judges and distributors were taken in. Don't you be.

The writer-director has nothing to say except that Israel can be a crazy place, and no technique with which to say it. The acting is mostly horrendous. The woman who plays the prostitute is interesting, but since there's hardly any character development or narrative arc she's treading water most of the time. The rest of the cast is unbearably amateurish. Not a single element of the setting is believable--not the Jewish home, the Yeshiva setting, or the Jerusalem bar. It's all low, low budget (though that's never an excuse not to have vitality) and hermetically sealed from the real world. I could list the inconsistencies and improbabilities, but why bother? What an enervated mess.

an impressive film, first effort or no...

[R_C_Olson · 9/10 · 23 August 2005]

Billy Joel wrote "only the good die young" in one of his songs, and that is the upshot of this movie. Ending with a bang, and not a whimper, Mr. Eitan Gorlin's first and only directorial effort gives a downbeat perspective on righteousness, as the Yeshiva student gets his seemingly unjust reward for attempting to go straight. Or is it that he should have been less cynical and married the girl, and it is his running away that is being punished? At any rate, what with settlements being given over to Palestinians, protesters vs. Israeli army confrontations in the news, this interesting film is one of the few (perhaps only) film depictions of Israel today that I can bring to mind. The idea of citizens running free, carrying AR-15s or AR-16s is little wild to the average American. That hitchhiking is not, apparently, in the realm of Science Fiction in this bloody, Holy Land, is yet encouraging, however.

On a personal note, the actor playing Mendy, Mr. Oren Rehany, seemed remarkably similar to another Oren I had met in life, and before viewing the movie, I checked the image on the DVD box against the photo on the web page of the Oren I am familiar with. I find it plausible that the Oren I met, years before, is more likely the Oren Rehany under a different name, that that the photos of the individual at his nominal web page are truly him.

Simply great and important film

[alba500 · 10/10 · 5 July 2009]

No point retelling the plot. The plot is not that important. This film shows true life. Warts and all. The director is not trying to take sides (Arab or Jew), he is not trying to lecture anybody. He just shows a snapshot of life in Israel. He is showing interaction between different people of different backgrounds. The actors are not very known, but all play very well. Acting is superb and the action is completely unpredictable. It is not a "Hollywood" movie so do not expect a typical formula with a happy end. This is a must see important film.

PS: Somebody complained in here about kids used as suicide bombers. In fact this does happen. I remember in the press about a year ago they caught a 13 year old boy all rigged up with bombs at a border crossing. There were hundreds of suicide bombings and attempted bombings. Whether this ruins somebody comfortable theory of this conflict or not, this is the fact of life.

At its core a coming of age story, but it is so much more.

[itclark64 · 3 May 2006]

The story is about a Jewish boy growing up in an orthodox Jewish family. Like many such environments he is told all the answers of life and religion and is not allowed to explore them for himself. Feeling sexually repressed he is told to go to a brothel by his rabbi to get it out of his system. There he meets and falls in love with a Russian prostitute "Sasha". Throughout the movie he meets many original but believable characters including an M16 touting American Jew that calls himself the "exterminator". Mike an American photojournalist that runs a bar called Mikes Place in Jerusalem. In Mikes place Arabs and Jews drink side by side in a late 60's early 70's hippie kind of atmosphere.

This movie is bazaar but is also believable with it's rich environments around Israel. It shows a realistic version of Israel depicting the Jerusalem night life and life in general. Some religious tension does exist in the film but is not the main focus that Americans often see in CNN and other Hollywood movies.

The movie is about growing up, about religion and the questions we all ask about god, about finding answer's for ourselves, about falling in love, about innocence, about making a life for yourself. The Holy Land takes a deep look into the human experience like none I have ever seen before but does it in a realistic way that doesn't drag you down and depresses you when you are done watching it. By the end of the movie you are thoughtful, a little sad but feel like you just experienced something special.

a very brave, honest film with fascinating characters.

[newstadt · 10/10 · 16 September 2003]

In a way, a Casablanca for the new millenium. An American ex-pat war photog owns a bar named Mike's Place which operates as a legal, political, and social neutral zone somewhere in Jerusalem. Into this mix comes a young (18?) yeshiva student seeking worldly exposure, a similarly young Ukranian prostitute with hope for a better life, a middle aged arab smuggler, an M-15 toting jewish taxi driver preparing for the Messiah, priests, rabbis, professors, rock musicians, porn producers, and Mike, the catalyst for some unexpected detours through the modern Israeli landscape.

Filled with memorable performances, honest portrayals, dialogue in at least four languages, and a plot which combines the profane with the sacred at a variety of levels. At its core, a beautiful film about a love and tragic choices.

hn

Leaving Jerusalem.

[Eugene_Klebanov · 8/10 · 22 December 2004]

I watched "Holy Land" (first time, on DVD). Enjoyed it. Watched "Leaving Las Vegas" couple of days later (first time, on DVD). And realized there is something in common. To avoid spoilers I will not specify similarities, but invite you to take a look and think for yourself whether you agree or disagree with me.

I liked "Holy Land" (8/10). Pace is generally good. It is slow in comparison with action, but, well, it is not action. Director is not insulting intelligence of viewers by explaining things too much, and I believe there are certain things (like true feelings of Sasha, for example) that you can only guess. Story grows like a tree, not telephone pole, with many branches going nowhere, adding credibility (Hints of Mike's life and current business, for example).

Finally, I want to notice, that movie set in Israel.

There's a culture clash in Jerusalem

[erxnmedia · 10 August 2003]

This is sort of a paint-by-numbers comedy/drama (spoiler: it gets a little dark at the end) about a 20-year-old Yeshiva student who can't stop whacking off to girly magazines and is sent out of town by his pervy religion professor to go sleep with a Russian hooker, on the theory that if he had sex with a hot young prostitute once, that would cause him to forget all about sex and then he could get back to studying the Bible and maybe get in the proper mindset for his upcoming arranged marriage.

Of course, he falls in love with a Russian stripper who w***s him once for a fee and then lets him follow her around while they mostly do nothing and she worries about her visa. He meets another one of her customers, a blustery bar owner named Mike (not Mike of Mike's Hard Lemonade, Mike with the quasi-divey cutesy bar for self-styled eccentric scruffy characters in downtown Jerusalem), who gives him a job washing glasses after they guzzle a bottle of Wild Turkey on the beach and toast their memories of the Russian hooker. Who then proceeds to hang around both of them and some other stock characters (the Arab merchant, the two puking old guys, the Russian mobster and so on).

I found it all a bit contrived except that I know a bar owner who is just as blustery and fake and full of it as the Mike in the movie, so I know that such bars and such bar owners exist. And I know young yeshiva students facing arranged marriages who've probably been in a strip joint (more than) once or twice. So it all hangs together. The confluence of all the characters that meet and their seeming ability to relate to and communicate with each other....I don't know if these people would really get together, that they would have that much to say to each other, and that the outcome would be as dramatic as that portrayed. (But we have seen some pretty dramatic and unlikely things in New York, coming from people we have no real beef with, so you never know.)

I was curious about the prostitution angle, whether that was a focus of the movie or just part of the decor. The screening I was at was in a commercial theater in the East Village. Completely by chance, the cast, director and distributor were there, and the distributor organized a Q&A in the lobby of the theater. (Charming but desperate attempt to generate word-of-mouth for a film that was completed in 2000 but which couldn't be shown until now because of people's supposed "sensitivities"; apparently it got little to no play in Israel itself, though it was produced there.) And there were one or two stock Israeli viewer types in the small crowd that gathered, to object to the portrayal of Israel. But other than that a fairly tame Q&A. After the Q&A I asked the director what he thought about the prostitution situation in Jerusalem. He said, rather proudly, that Jerusalem was "the biggest whorehouse in the Middle East", but that the trade had declined with the decline in fortune of dot-com companies. (Hopefully not due to any decline in the fortunes of imdb.com!) Anyhoo, from his comment, I got the impression that the whole sex trade and human trafficking/slavery thing was not his issue. It was just a plot device. Which left me wondering what his main thrust was, because really, the whole thing seemed kind of muddled.

But if you don't have a bulletproof vest but still want to see what Israel looks like, this movie is a good place to start, so go see it!

One of the best I've seen in a long time

[LKilbride45 · 9 August 2003]

Themes of love and trust, played out against a backdrop the horror of which doesn't become clear until the film's final moments, are told in a way that never becomes as predictable as anticipated. Who is the one who really loves? Who is the one who is really honest? This is that increasingly rare jewel: a thought-provoking movie. It is impossible that anyone who actually watches the movie as it unfolds could conclude that it is pro-Palestinian.

Cheap racist ending spoiled film (BIG SPOILER)

[lunogled · 26 January 2004]

Imagine you have a film in which there is only one black character. For the entire film he acts OK, but it's just a ploy.

In the final minute, he reveals his true colors and does "something black people do" (rapes a white woman, or whatever), and that was his main purpose all along.

Why not? It "could happen". Just as it's possible that the only Palestinian character in the film is just putting on a show, getting along with people and everything, while in reality all he wants is to get a 10-year old kid to become a suicide bomber and blow everyone up to smithereens (despite all the propaganda you might have seen, there have never been children suicide bombers. ever. So this is a _complete_ fantasy).

But if the black character was used in this way (or Jewish, or any other ethnicity) it would be crystal clear to everyone that this is racist, stereotyping garbage. Yet somehow, to portray Palestinians as terrorists it's OK. Heck, that's all they do. I have seen it in the news. Without that ending, the film would be OK. Not brilliant, but OK. With the ending, it's another example of how easy it is to dehumanize people who happen to have had a different language, culture or historical experience from you. Attitudes like this are exactly why people are still getting blown up in that part of the world.