crosslit-34001 This collection of remarkable talent was assembled on a weak script. If the average middle class Isareli family is self centered, morally slack, and shallow, this movie has nailed it. I suspect, however, that the producers intended a tantilizing film, and succeeded by delivering plenty of superficality. The lack of substance, despite strong performances, reminds the viewer that all that glitters is not gold.

adipocea So ugly was this movie that I really don't know what to start with. It seems to me that I have such different esthetically taste and ethical values to half of the Planet Earth... Do people like this exist? Do you really meet them on the streets, in the cafés, in the markets in Israel? Do they form the vast majority of the city of Tel Aviv? I don't know which critic(one that I really appreciated) defined this film "splendid"... There's nothing splendid about this film, not one frame, not one second..Everything is plain ugly. No, not ugly, repulsive, obnoxious. And the sex scene...Oh, oh, oh... Is defined realistic... I would call completely tasteless, useless(and I am not a shy type, I loved the sex scenes in Lust,caution, for example)

Margaret I came into the movie with good reviews in mind, but in reality found the movie was not "all that," although it was an interesting subject and I liked the authenticity of certain parts, most notably the strange ending. I have read many of the comments posted here and it is interesting to see the different viewpoints of the viewers. Certain comments helped me to better understand the film and my own reaction to it. My initial reaction is to be upset at how inhuman and unloving we humans can be in regards to ourselves and each other. How the family treated the divorced woman that Zaza was in love with, and even worse in front of her daughter, and how Zaza reacted mostly passively, was appalling and infuriating. I thought the mother was just dreadful. The ending was a bitter pill and makes you wonder how people can live like that. How dead life can be. The sad thing is that this situation, of parents, family members sort of maneuvering and dictating others lives, especially in a such a personal realm as marriage, is not necessarily restricted to particular cultures. As the director lets us see, it seems so inconceivable that these things happen, cruel and inhuman as they are, and yet they are what is accepted as normal and right. What is insane is seen as sane, and what is authentic and loving and real is seen as wrong and insane. Everything is upside-down....and that is so clearly evident. I must say this makes me think of the death penalty...we allow others to be killed because they are decided (how??) (is there some mathematical equation!!!) to be declared hardened, when in reality those deciding are heartless, merciless, unforgiving, cold, murderous, calculating, and all those adjectives they love to give about the person in question, in short hardened. They are taking others lives for the very crime they are in fact partaking in. If you believe in the Ten Commandments, "thou shalt not kill.".....there were no if ands or buts, or well in such and such a case..." It's obnoxious, no worse, criminal. Complete insanity and yet somehow this killing is considered legal(?) and right(!)...and these are the same pro-lifers!!! The irony (sickening) never ends. Goes to show how true (scary) that ending is and how numb as a society we can be and in many cases are. Look at the US today. Murder being committed inside and abroad through our "government" and we just watch..and even more scary are going to potentially...I so pray not..going to support it or allow it to be supported (which is the same....i.e by not voting) again. The sin of commission and the sin of omission, they're all one big happy family when it comes down to it. This movie...it's authenticity is so relevant...the more i think about it. In the ending, in the words of the little speech Zaza tells "the audience," he stumbles over their irony....Zaza realizing the absurdity, struggling with it, then swallowing his sense of truth, and "carrying on." It's tragic...what else can be said....except maybe, "How is this possible!!!"

B24 Apparently certain viewers are easily satisfied with this slice of exotic ethnicity sans the usual requirements of coherence and direction. I am not. As some have noted, it can be defined as a comedy only by some rather twisted logic. That involves the presumption that it is intended as an ironic portrayal of deeply flawed human behavior at odds with contemporary social norms.My own take is that everyone except the dog and the little girl seem to have come out of case studies in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). From the obese mother to the passive-aggressive son to the to the whole pack of stolid relatives who act as if nothing is strange about how they lead their lives, everything seems just plain weird.As has been noted, the love-making scene is not badly done. And the acting prowess of Ronit Elkabetz should garner some future attention. I would say the same for the dog, but I don't see him credited.A klezmer version of "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White" opens the final scene that deteriorates from there both in terms of plausibility and structural unity. Credits rolled without warning just as I was in the midst of a great yawn.