The depressing atmosphere was fitting the movie and I do think it was important to understand the way things are being treated in this family, but the movie missed either a closure or some kind of a saying. Even if the purpose of the film was to say that sometimes life just doesn't have any solutions, resolutions, or a closure, I still think that a movie of this kind should not leave out a progression of a plot.
I enjoyed most of it - but on the other hand I think it's a miss.
75% - Critics
6.5Keywords: father daughter relationshipsuicide attemptsingle fathergrieving widowerveterinary
Plot summary
Yoram is a vet at a safari park in Tel Aviv. A single father, his job is to take care of the wildcats, perform operations on sick animals and make sure that people don't get out of their cars when they encounter a herd of rhinos. Yoram sees less and less of his teenage daughter, Roni. To her, their dark apartment is a prison she breaks free from more and more frequently, and for increasingly long periods. One night, a team of paramedics appears at their door. Users of an internet forum have alerted them to the fact that Roni has decided to take her own life. After her attempted suicide, the only way out for father and daughter seems to be a trip out of town and back to the family. Israeli director Nimrod Eldar's feature-length debut is a story about injured animals, injured people and an injured country. A deceptive silence unfolds in calm and concentrated images. But all is not well beneath the surface and ghosts from the past are reemerging. Gradually, more and more details come to light, both about the relationship between father and daughter and with the rest of the family.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Movie Reviews
Reviewed by
A depressing film that could have been great if it had a "say".
Reviewed by
Greater than the sum of its parts
Yet another film about unresolved grief, only with writer/director Nimrod Eldar it is merely a pretext for something much greater-namely the pathology of an entire nation. A year after his wife's demise Tel Aviv veterinarian Yoram is still so wrapped up in his own pain he's unable to see it reflected in they eyes of Roni, his taciturn seventeen-year old daughter. Living like roommates rather than father and child, he exhibits more compassion for the animals in his care while she derives what comfort she can from strangers on social media. And then Roni attempts suicide and Yoram, not knowing what else to do, takes her to visit relatives upon her release from hospital-a visit that will open more wounds than it closes. Against a backdrop of sinkholes, circuses, and the empty trappings of religion, the disconnect between father and daughter plays out on a much larger stage with an older generation unable to communicate with the younger-in the case of a deaf adolescent, quite literally. With nothing to offer their children but criticism (or a plywood memorial if they should die in battle),Roni's older relatives are too busy shouting and blaming to actually hear a response. Even an impromptu "intervention" aimed at helping the young girl turns into a eulogy of sorts for her dead mother instead. Beautifully filmed with scenes that use Israel's arid landscapes and congested cityscapes to full effect, this is both a warm humanist drama about two injured people stumbling towards absolution (note whose behind the steering wheel) and a caustic examination of a generational/idealism gap that turns families into strangers.
Reviewed by
What a flow...
It is noot hard to understand that the average rating of this film is quite low. For it is kind of, that goes against the prevailing trends. But it is extremely beautifull movie. One of few that spares dialogues, but speaks with silence. Congratulations.