5 Broken Cameras (2012)
Average Rating: 7.7/10
Reviews Counted: 42
Fresh: 40 | Rotten: 2
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Critic Reviews: 15
Fresh: 14 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
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Average Rating: 4.1/5
User Ratings: 1,464
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Movie Info
An extraordinary work of both cinematic and political activism, 5 Broken Cameras is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, the footage was later given to Israeli co-director Guy Davidi to edit. Structured around the violent destruction of each one of Burnat's
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All Critics (43) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (40) | Rotten (2)
This is how the conflict looks from the other side of the barrier.
Top CriticA tough watch that'll leave you despairing of peace anytime soon.
As raw as the material of "5 Broken Cameras" can be, it is also lyrical and elegiac.
[A] bit jagged, inevitably incomplete, and in no way news-breaking: it is simply moving.
Takes the rough material of one man's life and transforms it into a story that is universal and urgent, offering firsthand witness to events that are too often portrayed as distant and impossible to understand.
Both a moving first-person essay and an artful exercise in political advocacy, 5 Broken Cameras is about the experience of West Bank protests from the inside.
... a mix of citizen journalism and social memoir.
Don't look to the film for specifics, but see instead a picture that suggests the impossibility of peace and a broken system, that while effective, practically ensures another go-round with the next generation.
More than or in addition to being a non-fiction, the film is a piece of life told from a personal perspective.
The circumstances under which this provocative, Oscar-nominated Palestinian documentary were made are just as interesting as the work itself.
[A] distressing portrait of everyday life in the West Bank... [B]oth horrific... and powerfully warm, funny, and human.
Burnat and Davidi give us access to one slice of the conflict, packaging it into a sturdily constructed work that bristles with barely contained fury.
It's a highly personalised and subjective account of the situation, yet still gives us a clear sense of how complicated life there is.
A fascinating reminder of why the humble video camera can be used as a weapon against political oppression.
It presents with overwhelming power a case of injustice on a massive scale, and gives us a direct experience of what it's like to be on the receiving end of oppression and dispossession ...
It's impossible to understate the importance of this documentary in helping us see exactly what life is like in occupied Palestine.
It is of course a one-sided film, but a powerful personal testimony: the kind of material that never makes the nightly news.
Each broken camera records a human tragedy as it flickers with its last gaze.
Burnat's first-person footage of skirmishes with Israeli forces, filmed over five years on the titular damaged equipment, should have been allowed to tell its own story.
A touching and revelatory piece of film-making about the plights of real people living in an uncertain world.
Despite all the suffering and injustice, the final message is one of optimism that feels neither facile nor tacked-on.
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| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
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| RT's categorization of Variety review is wrong | 4 months ago | 0 |
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May 31, 2012:
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Foreign Titles
- 5 Caméras Brisées (FR)
- 5 cámaras rotas (ES)
