quant This is my interpretation to the lower layer of the movie: Batia, whose parents abandoned her when she was a child, abandoned herself too within all the stress and loneliness of life in the big city. The sea shore is the place in which Batia is reconnecting with herself. The small child coming out of the sea symbolizes "Batia the child". Batia goes out for a journey of self search after this small child (herself). At the end, she finds herself, leave the small child at the bottom of the sea and reborn from the water to a new life.Other characters in the movie have their own parallel plot lines of trying to survive in the loneliness and alienation of the big city. They seek love but the people around them rarely notice their existence. The different characters briefly cross each other in different points during the movie, but the alienation breaks only at the end of the movie.After I saw the movie, I felt there is a lesson to it – not to abandon ourselves just because others abandoned us, reach to other people around us.

Harry T. Yung "Poetic" is both literal and in the cinematic context. The film, part of it at least, takes such an airy, insubstantial, poetic flow. Towards the end, there is really a poem, echoing circumstances of unexpected pathos.This Israeli cinematic gem, because of its structure, is often compared to "Crash". Less known "Coeure" (2006) would have been an equally good comparison, as well as a few others. What makes Jellyfish unique however is that it does not go to the length of these other films in weaving a complex tapestry of the component stories. The three stories in Jellyfish are so casually linked that there may very well be no links. This is good. Over-complicated plots often distract from the essence of the stories, obscuring some of their beauty.Nor does Jellyfish pound the emotions of the audience the way many of these other films did. When the people in this film exhibit their emotions, they are nonchalantly low-key. Again, this is good. This leaves the audience more room to ponder and reflect, both during the film and afterwards.The "main" story, if there is one, evolves around a gentle, unassuming young women - vicissitudes and flawed relationships in that part of her life to which we are allowed a brief glimpse. This is also the most surreal of the three stories, because the interaction with a mysterious little girl who materializes out of the waves at the beach. This triggers shreds and patches that are open to interpretation, such as the young woman's reflection of her own childhood. A secondary character in this segment is another young woman, a photographer who befriends the protagonist and helps when the mysterious little girl goes missing.The second story, on the contrary, is solidly real. It evolves around a young Pilipino domestic helper in Tel Aviv, with as the key motif her telephone calls, usually in a street corner booth, to her 5-year-old child back home. The other two key characters in this segment are her employers, mother and daughter: an invalid and strong-headed old women and an actress who is so wrapped up with her theatre career to spend time caring for her mother.The final story starts with an accident during a wedding, when the bride's broken ankle wrecks the planned honeymoon cruise. In a crummy local hotel (albeit still at a beach) that is a most unsatisfactory substitute, a mysterious woman enters that part of the young couple's life, stirring disturbing undercurrents of emotion. It is from this mysterious woman, purportedly a writer, that the poetry comes.While I have left out a lot of details and other characters, it can be seen just from the much simplified synopsis what a great variety of emotional avenues the directors can tread down. It is to the credit of Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret that they resisted the temptation of going overboard with the material and wisely kept the film to 87 minutes. Going top-heavy into any of these emotional avenues would have ruined this film. They have wisely pass up a stormy symphony for a nonchalant tone poem. For that, they have been rewarded last year with the Cannes Camera d'Or for best first film.

Ari Herzog Nikol Leidman is spectacular. Near the beginning of Meduzot, she plays a 5-year-old girl who walks out of the Mediterranean Sea onto a Tel Aviv beach wearing a flotation device around her waist. She may as well be naked. She doesn't speak but her wide-open and captivating eyes convey all that needs to be said.The girl befriends Batia, a 20-something woman with family problems, a job she hates, and a forgotten past. Social rules don't apply to Batia and the girl, as even the police don't place missing children on their list of priorities.One day, Batia literally runs into Joy, a Filipino woman who speaks English but is learning Hebrew while freelancing as a caregiver. Joy tries to help Malka recover from a hospital stay but Malka appears mean but that's only because of her relationship with her daughter. Nothing's what it seems.The hospital where Malka stayed is also where Keren was treated after she slammed her leg into the bathroom floor when trying to climb over a locked toilet stall on her wedding night. She and her new husband Michael stay at the famous Dan Hotel but the only beach-facing suite is taken by a mysterious woman who is writing a novel. Or is she? Walking out of the movie theater, I thought a lot about Meduzot and the translucent nature of jellyfish. The husband-and-wife filmmakers could have provided extra footage and explained more connections between the characters and put questions to rest with who the girl from the sea really is, but why spoil anything? I liked it fine the way it was.

moimoichan6 NICE : As Paul Thomas Anderson with "Magnolia", Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen chose with "Meduzot" to focus on a few characters that life randomly carries from one shore to another. Everything is tainted by a depressive but amusing tone that gives a pleasant melancholia feeling to the spectator. The fact that the story happens in Tel-Aviv does't seem to affect the lightness of this unpretentious movie, that only wants to underline the loneliness every human being faces in his life and give a little touch of hope to this sad fact.EASY : As Agnès Jaoui in "Le Goût des autres", Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen don't avoid in "Meduzot" some very easy and predictable critics, especially when it comes to give a satirical look on the artistic world of theater of the city. They also can't avoid some "Shortcuts" in the portrayal of their characters, and especially in the depiction of the angry - but at the end nice and well... just lonely - old lady. This two elements spoil a little bit the pleasure you can get to the pleasant little scenes the film offer.