A Tale of Love and Darkness

2015
6| 1h35m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 19 August 2016 Released
Producted By: Handsomecharlie Films
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Budget: 0
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Official Website: http://www.focusfeatures.com/loveanddarkness
Synopsis

The story of young Amos Oz, growing up in Jerusalem in the years before Israeli statehood with his parents; his academic father, Arieh, and his dreamy, imaginative mother, Fania.

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blumdeluxe "A tale of love and darkness" tells the story of young Amos Oz, living with his parents in the newly-born state of Israel. Under the pressure of war, the new environment and illness, cracks start to show in what seemed to be a happy family life once.Shortly into the movie, you notice that the style of telling the story diverges noticeably from your usual Hollywood film. Everything is a bit more poetic, more though-through and melancholic. This leads to a situation where you don't really notice what is about to unravel until it actually happens. A lot of warmth and humility accompanie this very personal story and make it universal. While some reviewers here mind that there's not a bigger picture evolving from this, I say that exactly this mixture of emotions and happenings is what makes it a bigger picture in the life of a boy.All in all this is a beautiful movie, that tells about misery whitout any anger. It shows how everyone has his own story and how others can just accompany you on this journey.
Moviegoer19 I have not read the book upon which the film was based, so my comments are purely on the film. Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes in I was thinking, okay, what's going on here? Why should I care about this story and these characters? As I continued to watch my caring about the characters and their story increased, until, by the end, I was very moved and cared deeply. At some point beyond halfway, I thought the greatest feat here is the creation of mood, not only of the characters but of the whole world presented in the film, and then, transferred to me, by virtue of my watching and listening to it. It's a visual and auditory feast.A lot happens in this film, both personally and historically, but ultimately what I was left with was a sense of a man recalling his childhood and the emotion that he carried with him through his life. As other reviewers have indicated, it's a poetic film, and I wound up absorbing it the way I might a poem. And in that way, it worked beautifully.
hessfamily This is a dark, poetic semi-autobiographical movie based on a book by Amos Oz about a young couple and a child who are living through the turbulent foundation of Israel. The movie focuses on hard realities and not the usual pioneer dreams that were sold to the public and which remain part of the myth of that era. It is not an action movie and the movie is in Hebrew, so if you don't like subtitles or have little interest in the Israel's birth or the novels of Amos Oz, you probably won't find this movie as great as I did. However, even if you rate this movie as average, you will still agree that the details are incredibly accurate to the smallest clump of dirt, shirt threat, and stone wall. This is not a cleaned-up Hollywood version of Israel. Natalie Portman's acting is outstanding, the scenes feel real, and the screenplay maintains the story teller's heartfelt artistic touch.
dromasca When it comes to films inspired by books I find the discussions about whether the book was 'better' (or not) than the film futile. I also do not consider films being 'true' to the books that inspired them as being a necessary virtue for this category. Literature and cinema are very different forms of art. They create emotions and they trigger thoughts each in very different manners. Even if the words in a play by Shakespeare or in a novel by Tolstoy are the same as in the film inspired by these, emotion comes from a different place for readers, theater audiences and movie audiences. It is somehow easier for me to avoid this kind of discussion in the case of the very ambitious project that was undertaken by already famous actress Natalie Portman for her debut as a film director, as I did not read (yet) the memoirs of Amos Oz that bear the same name - 'A Take of Love and Darkness'.From what I get from critics and friends who have read the book, Portman selected out of the very rich and complex memoirs that cover the first fifteen years of the life of Jerusalem-born Amos Oz one specific thread with a personal touch about the relation between the young boy and his mother, and focused the film on it. This may have been a fine choice, as the change of perspective and the decryption of the character of the young woman who came to Mandatory Palestine from Europe before the breaking of the war, her cultural shock, the building of the relationship with her son, the facing of historical developments and family crisis ending in the suicide that marked the biography of the writer - all these make of some fascinating material. And yet, the film never takes off. It may have been the deep respect for the text which let director Portman believe that she must be true not only to the spirit but also to the letter of the book. Maybe a more mature director, maybe Portman herself ten or twenty years from now if she continues on the directing path, would have had courage to build a more independent story with the risk of competing with the words of the writer. She did not do it, unfortunately.The result is a very literary film, and this is not, unfortunately, a compliment here. There are a few beautiful things in this film. Cinematography by Slawomir Idziak is exquisite - with the metaphors of dreams, of the Old Country, of the darkening skies of Europe covered by the birds of prey. Portman's acting is also sensible and touching at the key moments. The labyrinth of Jerusalem's narrow streets has both charm and also enhances the sensation of claustrophobia and pressure. Two many other aspects are however missed by: the roots of the psychological and physiologic decay of the mother, the build-up of tension between father and son that leads to the decision of the boy to change the course of his life. I am afraid that the non-Israeli audiences, or audiences not familiar with the history of Mandatory Palestine and the making of Israel will have a hard time understanding the details and the atmosphere, and there is not enough consistency in the characters (not to speak about action) to make them interested in the drama. I usually dislike using off-screen voice in movies. The words spoken off-screen are the most beautiful part of this film, and this is no wonder, as most of them are quotes from the book of the great writer who is Amos Oz. Their role in the film is to explain what the director could not translate in images. This is a problem.