Filmclub report 7
Last Wednesday 10 and a half of us watched Walk on Water. By “half” I refer to the gentleman who missed the first 25 minutes or so the movie. Apologies to him, I am sure he got a lot out of it as well, so I should have written 11 of us, but 10 ½ was catchier. As far as I can tell the mood of the audience was great throughout the movie. There were plenty of one-liner jokes and humorous situations that we all got and laughed at together. Then we were at the edge of our seats when events turned more dramatic.
Let me share an observation about the movie that I realized now, that I watched it for the third time. A main motif seems to be that everybody has relatives and for them s/he will always be dear no matter what s/he did. The very opening scene, where the protagonist assassinates a Hamas activist on the street already conveys this message. The Palestinian’s son is crying on the street and this image will haunt our hero later, when his unconscious is struggling with the morality of killing people. The same problem arises with the old Nazi officer whom he is sent to kill. Even he has family, who care for him, no matter what he did during Hitler’s regime. Here I have to contradict myself. The Nazi’s granddaughter was disturbed enough–when she learned she was lied to and her grandfather was still alive—to cut her ties from the family. Her brother on the other hand managed to consolidate the similarly mixed feelings. (But I will not tell you how, so I would not spoil the end of the movie for you.)
For those of you are wondering why the movie’s title was Walk on Water here are the very last lines from the movie.
Axel Himmelman: You need to completely purify yourself. Your heart needs to be like it’s clean from the inside: no negativity, no bad thoughts.
Eyal: And then?
Axel Himmelman: And then you can walk on water. I’m sure of it.
The DVD is available now for borrowing from our library.
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