Footnote (2011)

Original Title

הערת שוליים He'arat Shulayim

Genre

Drama

Director

Joseph Cedar

Country

Israel

Cast

Shlomo Bar Aba, Lior Ashkenazi, Alisa Rosen, Alma Zack, Daniel Markovich, Micah Lewensohn, Yuval Scharf, Nevo Kimchi, Yona Elian, Tsipi Gal

Plot

Eliezer (Shlomo Bar Aba) and Uriel Shkolnik (Lior Ashkenazi) are father and son as well as rival professors in Talmudic Studies. When both men learn that Eliezer will be lauded for his work, their complicated relationship reaches a new peak.

Opinion

Donald Clark, The Irish Times, said, "It remains painful to live in a world where Jack and Jill makes it into commercial cinemas and this superb Israeli film gets kicked into the underbrush.", I could not agree with someone more. Footnote is an outstanding Israeli film, whose topic differs from what the international audience is accustomed. Joseph Cedar does not deal with the Palestinian conflict or terrorism, but with the rivalry between father and son, both Talmudic scholars, taking, in my opinion, a huge risk because this film could get stuck in the Jewish community, or be boring to outsiders.
The performances from Shlomo Bar Aba, who plays the father, and Lior Ashkenazi, who plays the son, are incredible. 

Quotes

Eliezer: That's a very nice idea, very nice... but wrong.

Uriel: I will tell you something that my father told me once: Your work has many things correct and many things innovative. Unfortunately, the innovative things are not correct and the correct things are not innovative.

Rating

9.0/10