Footnote

outstanding Israeli character study and family drama
"Footnote" (107 min.) is a 2011 movie out of Israel. It brings the rather complicated but intruiging story of a father and son who both are scholars and researchers at the Talmud Department of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. As it happens, the son is actually more successful and the movie starts out with the son's acceptance speech upon getting elected into the Israeli Academy of Science and Humanities. Remarkably, we don't actually see the son but instead the camera focuses the entire sequence (probably 3-4 min.) only on the father, who seemingly is shell-shocked and/or confused and/or resentful at the ever-growing successes of his son. Then, about 30 min. into the movie, the father gets the call from the Israeli Department of Education that he'd been waiting to get for 20 years: he's been chosen to receive the prestigious Israeli Prize. Happiness turns to potential disaster when the son gets called by the Israeli Prize Committee the very next day with the bombshell that due to a...

Role Reversal and Time Lapse
FOOTNOTE is an appropriately titled sparklingly intelligent and entertaining film written and directed by Joseph Cedar. With a small cast and a focused story this little film form Israel is not only a pleasure to watch as a story performed as shared by brilliant actors, but it is also one of the most visually artistic and creative venture of cinematography to be on the small screen in a long time: the genius cinematographer is Yaron Scharf. Add to this a musical score that enhances every moment of the story - courtesy of composer Amit Poznansky - and the film simply succeeds on every level.

In a most ingenious way we are introduced to the two main characters - father and son, both professors in the Talmud department of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The film opens on the confused and somewhat unattached facial expression of the seated father Eliezer Shkolnik (Shlomo Bar Aba) as he listens to his ebullient son Uriel Shkolnik (Lior Ashkenazi) being inducted into the...

Very fine film - only flaw is an unsatisfying ending
This bittersweet comedy from Israeli is set in the rarefied world of academia and is a fine, interesting movie about the bitter relationship between a father and a son who both happen to be Talmudic scholars working at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and how their rivalry finally overcomes their filial obligations.

Eliezer Shkolnik (a terrific performance by Shlomo Bar Aba) is the father, and he seems a personification of male old age grumpiness. He looks at the at the rest of his colleagues with an insufferable air of intellectual superiority, and believes he hasn't been recognized to the extent that he deserves, yet the movie hints he is a bit of a fraud himself, his main claim to academic fame is having been thanked in a footnote in a book by a famous Talmudic authority. The more successful Uriel (Lior Ashkenazi, who usually plays young macho men, but here plays a middle aged academic against type), is the son. The film lampoons him for being a lightweight scholar and...

Click to Editorial Reviews