Israel: A Home Movie (2013)

Israel goes from a young, optimistic, albeit naive nation, to one in which the realities of middle-age (and worse) settle in. There is a description of "shell-shock"; a young soldier who declares "God bless morphine"; images of a relative "killed in a terrorist attack at about age 30"; the demolition of a minaret and discussion of whether it was a holy site; David Ben-Gurion visiting transit camps in 1956, and glimpses throughout of Ariel Sharon, Moshe Dayan, and Anwar Sadat. Perhaps nowhere in the world could home movies so intimately reflect the changing political face of a nation. As early as the late 1970s, one feels that tragedy has become the norm, that life inevitably leads to death and that - in Israel as we have known it - peace inevitably leads to war. (c) Alma Films