Film Reviews by F

Well, I've called it very good which it was for its time. Today in the few good films made the moral and ethical issues of the time of the founding of Israel would have been perhaps represented as less black and white and in more shades of grey.

I rarely find a film is as good as the book and although its a long time since I read Exodus this is certainly true for me in this case. I must admit personal prejudice also played a part in my judgement of the film. Although an agnostic with no Jewish connections , I feel the foundation of Israel was a good decision , a decision in which we Brits. did not play a very noble part, and I have always admired the way Israel has fought to maintain its existence,against heavy odds. I don't want to make this a political review but with 0.06% of the world's population Jews, they or half Jews have won 26% of the Nobel and mathematics prizes awarded. (hope I've got those figures right). In other words they have contributed hugely to the science and engineering which improves all of our lives.

Back to the film . I enjoyed it very much. I'm not a film buff but the quality of the acting I found very mixed, the goodies were just too good to be true , except for Newman and I thought the adaptation of the book was not that brilliant either. About par for Hollywood. That said its a very important film about a subject still relevant today.

I'm not of an artistic frame of mind or a film buff ,and can't review the film as a work of art. I can say however that I thorougly enjoyed this film and from the reviews and award nominations for this film it must rank highly among film buffs.

Right from the beautiful opening shots ,with Ry Cooders haunting slide guitar as background ,it grips your attention as you wonder why a man lost in the desolation is walking purposefully and compulsively towards more desolation. Eventually he touches the fringes of civilisation and his mental and identity problems start to be slowly resolved . The story then unfolds as to who he is, and why he has vanished from the world of all who knew him, and from all the relationships he once had. Slowly with the patient and loving help of his brother's family he recovers mentally and begins to build a relationship with his young son and then eventually to repair partly the tragedy of his relationship with his former wife.

Their story tells of the corrosive nature of possessive jealously and Travis,the lost man finds some sort of redemption in unselfishly reuniting his wife and son. Terrestrial TV shows so many rubbish films but rarely films of this moving quality. I watched it once on TV years ago ,never forgot it, and was very grateful to find it again on my dvd rental service. Wondeful.