Tehilim

After reading all the reviews for this movie I really thought I was in for a treat. This movie just made no sense to me at ALL. I forced myself to watch the entire thing before making assumptions. This movie just dragged on, gave no explanation for anything and it seemed like I was just watching the day and life of a typical Jewish family. It literally showed them waking up, eating, walking, etc and all in silence. I was just there waiting for SOMETHING to happen. Nothing did! The plot made no sense. At least provide of SOME kind of clue or reason why the father just decided to leave. Even the "car accident" scene was so lame. This whole movie just moved in slow motion. How it won/nominated for any award just boggles me.

Tehilim is a tale about a son dealing with a father's disappearance. it is also a very religious movie in this very sense, the father son relationship, or lack of it, resembles one's attempt to discover god in his life. faith and god are illusive elements and he who seeks redemption by finding one or both of them must endure some kind of suffering. in Tehilim, this suffer remains terribly untreated by the film's writers.

A documentary approach is taken by the director, which is somewhat subtle, but still voyeuristic enough to make us feel uncomfortable in front of some scenes. the main problem is, therefore, lack of real drama in the movie, and illogic occurrences that take place in some parts of the film. the strongest feeling that I had during watching it is "please, get to the point or finish." I don't want to write spoilers in this review, since the film debuts this week in Israel. I will only say that Tehilim is one of the strongest attempts ever made in Israel to make a truly religious work of art, but due to tragic screen writing failures this film is doomed to be an unfulfilled attempt. what a shame!

This film has no direction, no script, no good acting performances, no humour, no feeling and no humanity. The plot and storyline is totally ludicrous and unbelievable. In addition to this the film is incredibly badly made with appalling camera work, terrible lighting and sound, and looks like it wasn't edited properly. It really is an amateur attempt to made a film. It's an embarrassment to the people who made it and should never be shown in public. It certainly has no place in Israeli cinema, or in any cinema. After it ended we felt like we had totally wasted our time sitting watching it. I cannot say one good thing about this film.

The Israeli cinema, in general, has shown dramatic improvement for the last 10 years. Thus, I have seen many recently made Israeli movies that could easily be categorized as 'good', 'better' and 'excellent.' Alas, this movie shows that bad movies are still sometimes made there, too. I was really surprised by the rapt, ecstatic reviews given my some of the IMDb denizens. I normally very appreciate the mature, thinking crowd here. But now, guys, I'm sorry to say, it looked like a pseudo-intellectual exercise in making a vain attempt to give some meaning to the bad movie. Kind of reminded me of 'underlining metaphors' of the Vogan poetry from the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." I completely agree with the reviewer from Israel who gave it 1 star, was glad to find somebody sane at last. The movie had bad script (it looked like that they were filming without script at all, improvising on the fly), bad acting, terrible camera work, awful soundtrack. And if you really want to watch how a family handles the crisis of losing somebody close - watch another Israeli movie "Broken Wings", an excellent work in all respects.

A great story that makes you think about how differently people react to personal loss. The pace and the camera-work make you feel like a privileged observer, even like a family member at times. The relationships among the family members are fascinating and seem genuine. The message about religion at the end of the film certainly sent me home thinking. I did not mean to see this film, as the one I wanted to see was sold out, and this was the first time that I I had seen an Israeli film. Try not to learn anything about the plot before you see the film. I saw the film with subtitles, which added texture to the viewing.