Review
WALK ON WATER
Starring Lior Ashkenazi, Knut Berger and Carolina Peters
Directed by Eytan Fox
Opens Friday, May 20
Globe Cinema
Rhyme off a list of the touchiest subjects in the world right now and you'll likely have something that looks a lot like Walk on Water. Director Eytan Fox's story of a Mossad agent who befriends the gay grandson of a lost Nazi war criminal feints at commentary on a smorgasbord of issues, but can't stay focused long enough to make a point.
Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi) is an Israeli intelligence agent emotionally stunted by the death of his wife. Worried that taxing terrorist work might break him down beyond recovery, Eyal's superiors assign him to the Mossad version of playing right field – a job shadowing the grandchildren of a prominent Nazi long thought dead or vanished. The first, Pia (Carolina Peters), lives on a kibbutz, which gives Fox a convenient opportunity to ruminate on the meaning of communal Jewish culture. He quickly abandons the brief scenes of dancing and dining, however, in favour of the film's centrepiece – the relationship between Eyal and Pia's brother Axel (Knut Berger), who's come to Israel to visit and drop hints that their family back in Germany isn't so hot on the whole kibbutz thing. Tenuous at first, the two men's friendship grows as they journey around the country, sightseeing and awkwardly discussing existential questions.
The film goes off the rails right around the time the duo visits a bumpin' gay club and Axel's homosexuality enters the equation. A fling with a Palestinian Arab adds another tangle to the plot, which by this point is so burdened with leaden topicality that it can't move in any deliberate fashion. Fox's direction seems preoccupied, likely because his clear-headed pacing can't keep up with the story. The film's best moments come when its politics step back to let the characters breathe, as when Eyal and Axel visit the Dead Sea – a scene that skilfully mixes subtle surrealism with heartfelt character development. The final act, set in Germany, heaps ever more bulk profundity onto the story, and while it's tightly shot and achieves more tension than the rest of the film, it comes too late.
There are two or three great films in Walk on Water, but before Fox can find the threads, he needs to learn that sometimes even a microcosm can get too crowded. |
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