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Alila (2003)

tomatometer

33

Average Rating: 5.2/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 4

No consensus yet.

audience

38

liked it
Average Rating: 2.9/5
User Ratings: 712

My Rating

Movie Info

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

Nov 9, 2004

Kino International

Cast

All Critics (21) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (7) | Rotten (10) | DVD (1)

It's a bit of a mess.

July 30, 2004 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comment
Toronto Star
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It's too acerbic to be funny and too detached to be really moving.

July 30, 2004 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | Comment
Globe and Mail
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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.

June 10, 2004 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | Comment
Los Angeles Times
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None of the characters or situations truly manages to hold our attention, though there are some arresting moments.

March 4, 2004 Comment
Hollywood Reporter
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Gitai ... records the comings and goings with a keen eye.

February 27, 2004 Comment
New York Post
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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.

February 26, 2004 Full Review Source: New York Times | Comment
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Gitai delivers an amazing film every bit as satisfying as his masterpiece Kippur (2001).

February 1, 2005 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Combustible Celluloid

Suggesting that the strain of the Arab conflict has gotten to the Israelis and that peace might only be a pipe dream.

November 24, 2004 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | Comment
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

...Gitai has populated the story with one unlikable character after another, making it impossible for the viewer to connect with anything on screen.

August 21, 2004 Full Review Source: Reel Film Reviews | Comment
Reel Film Reviews

For all its flaws, Alila is an interesting social issue film.

July 30, 2004 Full Review Source: Jam! Movies | Comment
Jam! Movies

For non-Israeli audiences, Alila is an alternately illuminating and confounding glimpse into seldom-seen aspects of the country.

June 10, 2004 Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | Comment
Boxoffice Magazine

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.

June 10, 2004 Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly | Comment
L.A. Weekly

Gitaï's portrait of self-destructive lives is certainly honest, but his direction is suffocating.

April 22, 2004 Full Review Source: City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul | Comment

Extremely well-acted and generally absorbing.

March 2, 2004 Full Review Source: Film Journal International | Comment
Film Journal International

Another piece of essential viewing for outsiders trying to understand life in the Middle East.

February 26, 2004 Full Review Source: E! Online | Comment
E! Online

An interesting, if not entirely successful, adaptation of an excellent book.

February 26, 2004 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | Comment
TV Guide's Movie Guide
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Alila

"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

May 7, 2005
Harlequin68
Walter M.

Super Reviewer

(*** 1/2): Extremely well-acted. A very good film.

December 14, 2008
kingofthecorn
T C

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