Forgiveness Reviews

While the subject of this Israeli feature is riveting and the intention honorable, the narrative strategy and technical execution leave much to be desired.

Full Review | Original Score: C+

The film's laudable attempts to encompass the far-reaching quagmire of Jewish tribal identity, politics and psychology could have a profound effect on the audiences who do find it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

A metaphorical Israeli trauma sanctuary built over a massacred Palestinian village, and a raw yet mystical inquiry into the thin line between war and murder, and how combat multiples rather than eradicates enemies. Jewish guilt, Israeli style.

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Builds on real macabre coincidences to pile on symbolism higher and higher in time-tripping phantasmagoria of flashbacks, nightmares,fantasy and occasional credibility.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10

Isn't it time to accept that narrative film may not be the best way to deal with complicated socio-political issues like the Israel-Palestine conflict?

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

The result is a hodgepodge of plots and styles, a fault compounded by stiff acting and, except for a few scenes, wooden direction.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

The message may be clear -- suppress the past at your peril -- but the execution is a mess.

| Original Score: 2/5

Forgiveness feels like a high-concept stage play, the kind of well-meant but pretentious project where grand themes are worked out in a claustrophobic setting among a small cast.

Full Review | Original Score: C

David's trauma, madness, and recovery is arranged as a puzzle of dreams, flashbacks, hallucinations, and strikingly choreographed numbers that, while occasionally dazzling, remains in pieces at film's end.

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Its originality is stunted by a hodgepodge of pretentious scenes.

Full Review | Original Score: C+

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