Peneflix MOVIE REVIEWS BY PENEFLIX
Highly controversial but massively intriguing is Israeli filmmaker, Dror Moreh’s documentary revolving around six former leaders of Shin Bet; Israeli Security Agency, whose motto is “unseen shield” or “Defenders that shall not be seen”.
Watching and listening to the true tales of these conflicted men; men whose existence has been informed by war, strife, threatened perpetually by hatred and flaming hostility from Palestinian terrorists; despotically powerful they decide when, where, and how to strike; to kill or not, regardless of collateral damage. Moreh convinces these men to reflect on their past actions and the consequences that ceaselessly haunt them . This is soul-searching at its deepest and most traumatic level; indubitable, lacerating honesty.
Mesmerizing, is the use of archival footage, painting the bifurcation and escalating tensions between the Israelis and Palestinians; commencing with the 1967 war, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza; grueling aftermath, referencing the success of suicide bombers, capturing the hijackers of the Kav 300 bus, and their vigilante demise. Stunning technology used in tracking terrorists, torture techniques; elimination of Hamas bomb maker, Yahya Ayyash, via cell phone; drone attacks on terrorists homes; horrifying and fascinating, simultaneously.
At the heart of the film and the most problematic is the inauspicious portrait these six men forecast for the state of Israel; divisiveness between the liberal and radical forces; the Shin Bet did not prevent Yitzhak Rabin’s assination by right- wing radical, Yigal Amir (1995); ideologies torn asunder, these ageing forgers of safety and surveillance unveil their fathomless concerns about the route taken by Israeli leaders. Laying bare their own sins, accepting accountability, never shunning egregious errors. Every man, without exception, feels the need for a Palestinian state and the only path, as wretched as it may be, to reach that conclusion, is “conversation”; conversation with every faction, even terrorists, to reach an unlikely, tenuous harmony.
Profoundly thought-provoking, “The Gatekeepers” is an exceptional, eye-opening testimony by men whose introspection, fermented over the years, exhibiting their unhealed wounds, still oozing; sadly depicting the death of optimism; Israel doomed, futureless.
FOUR STARS!!!!
For Now……….Peneflix
I thought this documentary was exceptional. I could not get over the constant moral dilemma which is ingrained in the Israeli military. I heard a high ranking military man speak last year and he spoke over and over about civilian casualties vs the important target. I only wish others with weapons had the same moral compass.
PLEASE READ THE below AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK! P.
This film, and the message it attempts to deliver, could not have come at a better time. In a country that portrays itself as a democracy, an oasis of higher moral values than the savages (Palestinians, of course), this very country’s security apparatus has just tortured to death a Palestinian prisoner(Arafat Jaradat) and is still torturing others. This highly moral state practices Administrative Detention-arrest without charge or trial for 6 months. Imprisonment can be extended indefinetly.
I am rather pleased that “others with weapons” don’t have the same “moral compass”.
BOTH SIDES HAVE SINNED; BUT AT LEAST THE ISRAELIES ARE TRYING TO COME TO TERMS WITH THE END JUSTIFYING THE MEANS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENT. P.
Only in a democracy could they have made a film like this. This would never happen with the Palestinians. A profound and thoughtful film.
Israel is as democratic as the dead apartheid in South Africa. Should the victims-the Palestinians- reflect on how kind their Israeli jailers are? Israel has not allowed the original inhabitants of the land the simple right of statehood. Expulsion, imprisonment, harassment, disposition and subjugation constitute the hallmark of Israel’s existence. Give us our land back, and I’ll make you several films!!!
Possibly this is the “dialogue”, “conversation” the former heads of the Shin Bet were questing for; it takes two parties.
Thank you for your pungent comments. P.