Walk on Water (2004)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Eytan Fox

Writer:

Gal Uchovsky (writer)

Release Date:

4 March 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

He was trained to hate until he met the enemy

Plot:

Following the suicide of his wife, an Israeli intelligence agent is assigned to befriend the grandchildren of a Nazi war criminal.

Plot Keywords:

Homosexual | Gay | War Criminal | German | Sea Of Galilee

Awards:

3 wins & 9 nominations

Cast

Lior Ashkenazi	...	Eyal
Knut Berger	...	Axel Himmelman
Caroline Peters	...	Pia Himmelman
Gideon Shemer	...	Menachem
Carola Regnier	...	Axel's Mother
Hanns Zischler	...	Axel's Father
Ernest Lenart	...	Alfred Himmelman
Eyal Rozales	...	Jello
Yousef 'Joe' Sweid	...	Rafik
Imad Jabarin	...	Rafik's uncle
Sivan Sasson	...	Weapons Instructor
Natali Shilman	...	Iris (as Natali Szylman)
Hugo Yarden	...	Kibbuz Manager
Joshua Simon	...	Kibbuz Singer
Tom Rahav	...	Kibbuz Singer

Also Known As:

LaLehet Al HaMayim (Israel: Hebrew title) (working title)
To Walk on Water (Israel: English title) (working title)
Walking on Water (Israel: English title) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for some language including sexual references, and for brief nudity.

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

Israel | Sweden

Language:

English | German | Hebrew | Italian | Turkish | Arabic

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Switzerland:16 (canton of Zurich) | Australia:M | Argentina:16 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | USA:Unrated | USA:R | UK:15 | Netherlands:12

Filming Locations:

Berlin, Germany

Company:

Fond Européen Média

Trivia:

Caroline Peters, who plays Pia, revealed in an interview on Israeli television that her actual grandfather was a Nazi, just like her character's grandfather in the film

Goofs:

Continuity: When Eyal goes to Alex and Pia's hotel in Tel Aviv to pick them up, the hotel seen in the establishing shot is the Renaissance Hotel. However, the next shot of them actually walking out of the hotel has them walking under a sign and past security barricades that all say Sheraton Moriah Hotel.

Quotes:

Axel Himmelman: [tries to walk on the sea and falls in]
Eyal: [sarcastically] Bravo. You did it.
Axel Himmelman: You don't understand. You can't just come to the Sea of Galilee and start walking on water. If you could, everybody would be doing it. You need to prepare yourself.
Eyal: And how would you do that? Please enlighten me.
Axel Himmelman: Well, 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.

Movie Connections:

References The Eurovision Song Contest (1998) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Your soul

The Eyes Have It

I saw this film without knowing anything at all about it, except that it was Israeli and about someone getting to know his enemy. I was utterly entranced by the story, and the way it interwove complex conflicts like Israeli v. Arab, Jew v. Nazi, even gay v. straight, issues which are usually only dealt with in simplistic terms -- especially in all the homogenized, mainstream pap that comes out of Hollywood.

I found the characters to be fascinating and complex, each of them struggling with his own private conflicts. The main character, Eyal, played by gorgeous Lior Ashkenazi, who is a major star in Israel, is a cold, unfeeling assassin working for the Mossad. We see how efficiently he performs his duties in the opening. But Eyal is a character who is emotionally damaged, his feelings so bottled up that he can't even mourn the suicide of his wife.

Because he refuses psychological counselling, he is denied another mission but is instead assigned to a pet project of Menachem, his world-weary boss, to befriend the grandchildren of an aging Nazi who had come close to exterminating Menachem and Eyal's mother as well, in order to try to discover information about the grandfather's whereabouts.

Eyal is grudgingly polite to the German sister, who has moved to Israel and lives on a kibbutz. Because she has to work, Eyal spends all his time with her visiting younger brother, who is a kind, open, caring, and humanistic youth. Eyal finds himself increasingly drawn to this young man, in ways he can't understand. His eyes reveal his growing fascination, but confusion at unfamiliar feelings he didn't know were there. The core of the movie is their growing relationship, both in emotional as well as physical terms, as they shower together naked, and Eyal rubs suntan lotion on the young German while they are both nude.

When it finally dawns on Eyal that Axel is gay, which everyone else on the planet had figured out long ago, it upsets Eyal's macho self-image and he grumpily retreats -- but circumstances compel his return, and he finds that the feelings Axel has stirred up in him save his soul.