Directed by Amos Gitai, Alila is based on Yehoshua Kenaz's novel Returning Lost Love and chronicles the trials and tribulations of every day life in Tel Aviv. Most of the film revolves around an apartment block on the working-class borders of Tel Aviv, where the trysts of residents Hezi (Amos Lavie) and Gabi (Yael Abecassis) attract their neighbors' attention, as does the unauthorized construction of an additional wing to the building. A neighboring family patriarch, meanwhile, is dealing with
legal troubles (he hired illegal Chinese construction workers), the AWOL status of his son, and his wife's affair with a younger man. A Holocaust survivor (Yosef Carmon) and his Filipino housekeeper (Lyn Shiao Zamir) further illustrate the conflict between Jews, Jews of different extractions, and Arabs in the community. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
The story and even the characters turn out to be less interesting than the overview it gives us of the way Israelis live now, its portrait of a dislocated society where despair rumbles beneath the surface of everyday life.
Amos Gitai's acidly comic study of life in a flimsy Tel Aviv apartment complex is a sour urban mosaic whose seedy characters, try as they might, can't get out of one another's faces.
Though absorbing enough, Alila must be counted a noble failure, if only because its efforts to follow the screwed-up lives of 12 hapless souls in a seedy Tel Aviv apartment building finally add up more to mere mimicry than commentary.
"Alila" is an Israeli movie set in an apartment building. It features various denizens while focusing on a divorced builder and his son who has gone AWOL from the army and a very anonymous affair. Director Amos Gitai uses exquisite tracking shots and jump cuts to tell his story but Michael Haneke fell flat on his
face doing pretty much the same thing with "Code Unknown" in 2001. "Alila" is a slight improvement.(Both "Alila" and "Code Unknown" make mention of illegal immigration.) What this technique allows for is glimpses into the lives of its characters but because that is all we get, there is never a sense that we ever get know any of them, and several remain complete mysteries. There is something here about how neighbors interact with each other but not much.
May 7, 2005
Walter M.
Super Reviewer
(*** 1/2): Extremely well-acted. A very good film.
No quotes approved yet for Alila. Logged in users can submit quotes.
Submit a Quote from 'Alila'
A quote can be a single line from one character or a memorable dialog between several characters. Please make your quotes accurate. Quotes will be submitted for approval by the RT staff.
Example:
Luke: Alright. I'll give it a try. Yoda: No. Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.
Top Critic
