Radu Mihaileanu's "Live and become" could be defined as an 'indie crowd-pleaser'. I know it's not the best definition, but think about it: a European movie with a lot of nonprofessional actors, an inspiring title and story
Strong story. Films like this one always make the intelligent viewer suspicious, and with reason. There were many things I though I'd see in "Live and become"; I found them all.
The script, by Mihaileanu and Alain-Michel Blanc, constructs its bases from something that has to be veridical because of the way the movie presents it, with admitted seriousness. If it's not, then the director and his writing partner have made us believe the suffering throughout someone's life and the film's most revealing moments from something that never occurred.
Schlomo, the film's main character, leaves a village in Ethiopia because his mother obliges him. Soon the 9-year-old, a non-Jew, finds himself in Israel saying a name that's not his (but it's the only one we ever know he has) and admitting to be a part of a religion he didn't grow up knowing: Judaism. When he leaves his mother, she tells him something like: "Live and become, and don't come back until then".
The boy obeys, of course, but lives his whole life trying to understand what his mother meant, as he talks to the moon as if it where his mother and writes letters and arguments to defend himself in debates relating them with his personal feelings. In his life in Israel, he lives with adoptive parents Yael (Yael Abecassis) and Yoram (Roschdy Zem), who love him but, although he learns to love them back, he only wants to go back home. One man will help him manage this desire, but I won't tell you who he is because the role he plays in the boy's life and how they meet each other is probably the film's highest point.
I don't want to sound disqualifying, but it's hard to sustain a story like the one "Live and become" presents. I suspected that it would center everything on the boy's dilemma, and it did. Everything revolves around the prejudice and consequences of Schlomo's situation; some discussions become predictable and sometimes it seems this is being exploited so much that it leaves the rest undeveloped.
The truth is that there's not much more character development in the film than the three- dimensional Schlomo, who is played by three different actors and only one seems to comprehend him (Sirak M. Sabahat), when the boy is no more and we see him in his maturity.
When I said "Live and become" was a crowd-pleaser, I meant that it knows the material it's dealing with and the effect it can generate in an audience. It's a big dramatic effect of course, that generally provokes a big smile or a little tear. The experience I had with "Live and become" is very similar to the ones I had with "Whale Rider", from New Zealand, and "The Pursuit of Happiness" from USA; both crowdpleasers.
"Whale Rider" relied on Keisha Castle Hughes' presence to generate emotion (and maybe too much on the images), and 'Pursuit' relied on Will Smith's chemistry with his son (and not so much on the images). Here, the actors don't have the sparkle, and Mihaileanu bets it on the music-loud and heartbreaking-and the images.
The three films are moving; I said it, but I didn't buy any of their stories. This one could have the most solid general development, a fact that may redeem its poor, crowd-pleasing ending.
The script, by Mihaileanu and Alain-Michel Blanc, constructs its bases from something that has to be veridical because of the way the movie presents it, with admitted seriousness. If it's not, then the director and his writing partner have made us believe the suffering throughout someone's life and the film's most revealing moments from something that never occurred.
Schlomo, the film's main character, leaves a village in Ethiopia because his mother obliges him. Soon the 9-year-old, a non-Jew, finds himself in Israel saying a name that's not his (but it's the only one we ever know he has) and admitting to be a part of a religion he didn't grow up knowing: Judaism. When he leaves his mother, she tells him something like: "Live and become, and don't come back until then".
The boy obeys, of course, but lives his whole life trying to understand what his mother meant, as he talks to the moon as if it where his mother and writes letters and arguments to defend himself in debates relating them with his personal feelings. In his life in Israel, he lives with adoptive parents Yael (Yael Abecassis) and Yoram (Roschdy Zem), who love him but, although he learns to love them back, he only wants to go back home. One man will help him manage this desire, but I won't tell you who he is because the role he plays in the boy's life and how they meet each other is probably the film's highest point.
I don't want to sound disqualifying, but it's hard to sustain a story like the one "Live and become" presents. I suspected that it would center everything on the boy's dilemma, and it did. Everything revolves around the prejudice and consequences of Schlomo's situation; some discussions become predictable and sometimes it seems this is being exploited so much that it leaves the rest undeveloped.
The truth is that there's not much more character development in the film than the three- dimensional Schlomo, who is played by three different actors and only one seems to comprehend him (Sirak M. Sabahat), when the boy is no more and we see him in his maturity.
When I said "Live and become" was a crowd-pleaser, I meant that it knows the material it's dealing with and the effect it can generate in an audience. It's a big dramatic effect of course, that generally provokes a big smile or a little tear. The experience I had with "Live and become" is very similar to the ones I had with "Whale Rider", from New Zealand, and "The Pursuit of Happiness" from USA; both crowdpleasers.
"Whale Rider" relied on Keisha Castle Hughes' presence to generate emotion (and maybe too much on the images), and 'Pursuit' relied on Will Smith's chemistry with his son (and not so much on the images). Here, the actors don't have the sparkle, and Mihaileanu bets it on the music-loud and heartbreaking-and the images.
The three films are moving; I said it, but I didn't buy any of their stories. This one could have the most solid general development, a fact that may redeem its poor, crowd-pleasing ending.