Walk on Water

Plot synopsis:
Eyal is an agent in Mossad, the Israeli security service. He is a hitman who targets enemies of Israel. His wife has recently committed suicide, and the agency decides that he needs to take on a less challenging assignment: to find an aging Nazi war criminal and get him "before God does".
In order to track down the old man, Eyal poses as a tour guide and befriends the Nazi's adult grandchildren, Axel and Pia. Pia lives on a kibbutz, an Israeli commune. Her brother Axel visits her in order to convince Pia to return to Germany for their father's seventieth birthday. It is later revealed that Pia's estrangement with her parents began when she discovered that they were hiding her grandfather. She shares this information with Axel.
Although he has a job to perform, Eyal truly befriends Axel and Pia. Axel and Pia are decent people who demonstrate that most Germans have gotten beyond the hatred that led to the Holocaust. They spend time together and Eyal enjoys himself, even if he would not openly admit so. His friendship with Axel allows him to display some humanity, letting down his tough-guy machismo. Eyal and Axel even take a mud bath by the Dead Sea, showering off together in the nude afterward.
When the three are at dinner one night in a Tel Aviv restaurant, Axel speaks privately to the Palestinian waiter, Rafik, and finds out where the best club in town is. Later that evening, Axel, Pia, and Eyal arrive at the club. Eyal is shocked to discover that it is a gay club. He sees Axel dancing with Rafik and is taken aback.
Eyal is initially disgusted and disappointed to discover that Axel is gay. He asks to be removed from the assignment, not attempting to hide his homophobia as the reason. His boss, Menachem, insists that Eyal finish the mission. Eyal visits Germany and comes to realize that Axel's orientation is unimportant. During the visit, Axel runs into a group of friends, drag queens, coming off the U-bahn. A group of skinheads attack them and Eyal defends the queens. In doing so, he reveals that he is fluent in German. He tells Axel that his parents were German, leaving out that most of the Jews in his mother's region of Germany had been killed by Axel's grandfather. Later during the visit, Eyal runs into Menachem, whose family was also killed by the grandfather's Nazi activities.
Axel invites Eyal to his father's birthday party. The guests are uncomfortable about Eyal's nationality and religion, but still polite. After the cake is brought out, Axel's parents surprise the guests by bringing out Axel's aged grandfather. Axel angrily confronts his mother and goes to Eyal's room, only to find a folder full of information on Axel's family. Meanwhile, Eyal meets with Menachem and tells him that they can easily take the grandfather and bring him to Israel to be tried for his war crimes. Menachem reveals that they are the only two on this mission, and the aim is to kill the grandfather. Eyal is clearly conflicted, but takes the case of poisons that Menachem gives him.
Eyal arrives at Axel's house and enters the grandfather's room, unbeknownst to all but Axel. Axel sneaks up behind Eyal and watches as he fills a syringe with poison, doing nothing to intervene. Ultimately, though, Eyal is unable to fulfill the task. He leaves, and Axel tenderly caresses his grandfather's face before turning off his oxygen tank, killing him. He goes to Eyal's room, where Eyal tells him that the suicide note his wife wrote told him that he kills everything that comes near him. Eyal says that he doesn't want to kill anymore and breaks down in Axel's arms.
The story jumps ahead 2 years. Eyal and Pia are married with a child named Tom and living on the Kibbutz. Eyal and Axel remain good friends.

Tags: queer, murder, flashback

Review:
"Walk on Water" piles layers of personal, family, religious, cultural, historical, employment, geopolitical, sexual, geographical, guilt and responsibility issues on two men -- and still makes it work as the gripping story of two individuals whose lives affect each other.I saw an interview with director Eytan Fox where he said he wanted to imagine the two most opposite men possible and make them deal with each other.
With writer Gal Uchovsky, he focuses on two men who are almost philosophical constructs of dissimilarity yet they come across as real people whose actions and reactions are unpredictable.The central character Eyal is the quintessential sabra (Israeli-born native), a craggy, macho Mossad agent unable to discuss his feelings about his ravaged marriage, a child of a Holocaust survivor, fatigued with terrorist attacks and revenge, but in the opening moments efficiently murders a Hamas leader.He is sent by his mentor/father figure on a rogue mission that annoys him in every possible way -- going undercover to gain the confidence of a young German fully integrated into the EU whose every opinion, action, lifestyle and family background he despises, a continental take on "Donnie Brasco." They personify Faulkner's dictum that "The past is never dead.
It's never even past." as each man learns that the measure of a man is not just what he does today and did yesterday, but the genetics and heritage that make up his identity and does influence his choices -- choices that we hold our breaths to see played out.Lior Ashkenazi captures the screen projecting the relaxed casualness of male camaraderie comfortable from years in the military and then his reactions as he gradually realizes he's been thrust into more complex situations.Though the situations get a bit too artfully complicated when their somewhat picaresque adventures range from the German's kibbutznik sister to Palestinians to skinheads and a somewhat unnecessary though emotionally satisfying coda, the dialog does refrain from a couple of the most obvious ironies as each man gradually reveals their true nature to each other.Hearing "Achtung!" amidst Israeli folk dancing is among the unusual juxtapositions in a movie where the characters can only communicate across the divides in English, amidst the three languages they speak among themselves.
This is more than slightly perplexing since this film is not only shot, mainly, in Israel but also because it deals with a topic that is highly charged and controversial among Israelis, namely, the collaboration with modern day Germany, in light of the not so distant past of the Holocaust.Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi in a terrific performance) is a Mossad agent, returning from Turkey after an efficient and clean assassination of a Terrorist only to find that during his absence his wife, Iris, committed suicide.
Axel, the German tourists who starts as Eyal's nemesis (not only because of his origin but also due to his gay tendencies and his merry and merciful personality), ends up as the one who turns Eyal's life around.The relationship with modern day Germany is still a touchy subject in Israel and will probably remain so for many decades to come.
This movie deals with the dealing of both Israelis and Germans with their past and with each other by the impossible friendship between Eyal and Axel.The Latin credits, as I said before, are the prophecy for the filmmakers' intention for foreign viewing.
It begins with the almost apologetic mentioning that Eyal's assassination "victim" is a terrorist , continues with the too PC and not very plot-essential coexistence with the Israeli-Arab population and the atmosphere of the gay night life.Moreover, the film conveniently deals with another controversial subject, Palestinian Terror, in a manner that is easier for the European "creative stomach" to digest.
I loved everything about this film, from the script to the acting and to the excellent photography (which, I have to admit, is rare in Israelie movies, at least until the last few years).Although I do understand that Israelies and Germans are more likely to connect to this film, I recommend it to everybody.
The storyline, set in modern-day Turkey, Israel and Germany, is intriguing though I found the final scene unnecessary until the producer explained that it was added to give Israeli audiences a sense of hope for the future.The representation of German culture was quite accurate: young Germans cannot identify with their grandparents' experiences during the second world war.What started out as a very promising film became a bit too stereotyped in the end: while there has be a rise in neo-Naziism in Germany, attacks in the subway are rare (especially in cosmopolitan cities like Berlin); having a German grandfather who lived in exile in Argentina is also fairly atypical - more realistic would have been a grandfather who could not understand/identify with the youth or who completely agreed with the youth and struggled with his own past.The use of language throughout the film is very realistic and the English text is direct and simplistic.
Of these, it really examines Israeli-German relations and homosexual relationships in most detail and leaves a lot of open questions on the other issues.If you're thinking at this point that the film sounds like it might be a bit too heavy, think again.
In order to trace him, Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi) takes a job as a tourist guide for the grandson of war criminal - sociable, open, friendly young German, Axel.
This beautiful film refuses to go there, but instead mixes the young people of Germany and Israel in a manner that finally enlightens us as to the process of letting go, of forgiveness in order to move ahead with living.Eyal (the dashingly handsome and sensitive actor Lior Ashkenazi) works for the Israeli group headed by Menachem (Gideon Shemer) whose life's work it is to track down and kill all remaining Nazi perpetrators of the concentration camps.
Eyal is a damaged man, his wife has committed suicide partially because of his job as hired assassin of anti-Israeli people, and he has finally grown weary of Menachem's obsession to exterminate all living Nazis.
Yet he is assigned one more 'victim', an old man who is the grandfather of two German young people - Pia (Caroline Peters) who happily lives in an Israeli kibbutz and her brother Axel (Knut Berger) who has come to Israel to plead with his sister to return to Berlin to her estranged parents for her father's birthday.
Eyal poses as a travel guide to take the Nazi's grandson, Axel Himmelman (Knut Berger), on a tour of Israel while visiting his sister, Pia (Caroline Peters), who has renounced her family and lives in on an Israeli kibbutz, communal farm.
The film starts in Istanbul, Turkey, to Israel - Tel Aviv, Sea of Galilee ("Walk on Water," indeed), to Berlin, Germany - it's almost a travelogue, multi-lingual in Turkish, Hebrew, English and German.
It has a strong central cast: Lior Ashkenazi who inhabited the lead role of Eyal with dual lightness and intensity (not forgetting hints of grieving numbness), Caroline Peters as Pia and Knut Berger as Axel - complementing each other as the Himmelman sister and brother (including a delightful cabaret duo performance), and Gideon Shemer in the supporting role of the quiet yet firm Menachem, Eyal's only surviving family friend and 'mentor.' Possible recent related films: the German film "Downfall" (2004) with powerful actor Bruno Ganz in the lead with a 'humanized' approach to the infamous leader; the documentary "Paper Clips" (2004) that involved a group of school children's moving approach to understanding the historical events - both I've yet to see.
I had heard very little about WALK ON WATER when I happened to catch the previews, and the story piqued my interest immediately.Eyal, (the sullen but ruggedly handsome Lior Ashkenazi), a Mossad operative, has just completed yet another successful mission - the assassination of a well-known Hamas leader.
Instead, he has a "special" assignment for his favorite agent: to get closely involved with the German granddaughter and grandson of a Nazi war criminal who has been secreted away by his family in an undisclosed location.Rather than submit to a psychiatric evaluation, Eyal reluctantly complies and serves as the tour guide to the outgoing and sweet-natured Axel Himmelman (Knut Berger), who has come to visit his sister Pia (Caroline Peters) at the kibbutz where she lives and works.At first, the mix is anything but an easy one; the swarthy, sullen Israeli and the humanistic blond Germans.
To say that the encounter is life-changing is an understatement, as an invitation to a birthday party for Axel's dad uncovers secrets and lies, and shatters the fragile facades built from a gossamer web of betrayal and denial, not only for the Himmelman family as a whole, but for Eyal himself, who finally achieves a soul-cleansing catharsis from the most unlikely of places and the most unusual of friends.Questioning the most difficult conventions of nationality, ideology, sexuality and spirituality is something that most films, mainstream or otherwise, can find it tough to do when just tackling a couple of these issues.
The subject matter is as intricately layered as the use of the four different languages spoken in the movie, (Hebrew, English, German and a bit of Arabic), as is the choice of music (American and Israeli folk and pop leaven the surprisingly engaging soundtrack), and all of it is as involving and enlightening as you could hope for from an intelligent and ultimately uplifting film experience such as this.I look forward to seeing more of the work of both Mr. Fox and Mr. Ashkenazi with great anticipation..
Eventually the former agent does meet his lover's sister, falls in love with her, and they begin a family together.As a several times viewer of this movie, I've never found much indication that the gay, real-life "near-ending" described by Fox ever made it into this film of his.
And, when all is said and done, the film does conclude with the two of them back in that Sea of Galilee beach scene, and Eyal's closing it all out with his (what I'll call) "Ode to Axel." Lastly though, it does have to be acknowledged that movies with too much of a gay theme are, obviously, hard sells anywhere: US, Europe and Israel, no doubt.
The Mossad agent Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi) assassinates a Hamas leader at the start of the film returning home to find his wife has committed suicide.
His boss Menachem gives him a safer temporary job of pretending to be a tour guide for the grandchildren of a Nazi war criminal, Alfred Himmelman, with the idea that the tourists will lead him to their grandfather.This German brother and sister with their own issues open up the eyes of Eyal to his own prejudices; he is challenged by Axel Himmelmans (Knut Berger) sexuality.
He is also challenged by Axel's sister Pia (Carolina Peters), a German lass who lives and works on a kibbutz in Israel.I saw this film on television.
As a result, the characters come across as very real and it makes the story believable.The director, Eytan Fox, worked with the writer Gal Uchovsky to create two men so diametrically different, it's impossible to think that they could be friends.There are some very powerful scenes, particularly the one in Axel's home.
The explanation is that the two central characters - a young German man whose grandfather was a Nazi and a little older Israeli who is an accomplished Mossad agent - only have English as a common language and spend much of the film together, first in Israel and then in Germany.
The good-looking leads are Knut Berger as Axel and Lior Ashkenazi as Eyal who go on a journey as much emotional and political as geographic.Director Eytan Fox and writer Gal Uchovsky - a gay couple - have produced a work that raises so many complex issues about relationships - between straight and gay men, between Jews and Arabs, between Israelis and Germans - and so many moral issues - including suicide bombing, state assassination and private justice - that one has to forgive them for a number of implausibilities in the plot (that I could only discuss by spoiling your viewing).Although I am not Jewish, I have visited Israel (including all the locations featured in the film) and I saw the movie in a synagogue in North London with close Jewish friends.
The new propose of famous director from Israel, Eytan Fox, who directs the hard "Yossi & Jagger" comes with a new, if is same of hard, work about the power of forgive and forget, which both are so difficult to any human been.At the first look likes a famous Hollywood thriller, "Walk On Water" the makes us find its real purpose about a film that finds to be the encounter of two cultures, among other things.
Eytan Fox made a movie with well defined characters, which one have a purpose which impact in the lead (Famous Isareli actor Lior Ashkenazi): Axel, who is homosexual and redefines the moral concept of Eyal, Pia who don't love the way in which her family manages the things, and finally the father of Eyal, who manages much of certain concepts of Eyal.
A ambiguous poem about social and personal values, about the significance of gestures and words, about the image of the other who makes our interior universe a deep cage.Every ghost of recent history are parts of a conversation beyond the words.Every symbol of a young society (kibutz, Mossad, hate and fear against Arabs, the German like testimony of Shoah, the tradition versus life, the wait of sense for facts, crimes and errors, the special relation with God and the shadow of Moses, the image of gay in a traditional system and the failure of a way to see the life) are pieces of this fascinating film, a film about love and hope, fight against past and values of present.
This issue is certainly serious and interesting enough, and it hasn't been discussed in many other films.However, Walk on Water insists on dealing also with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, homophobia, and marriage problems.
This is just too much and none of the subjects receive proper treatment.Further, the plot through much of the film is just unreasonable, with one story hole following another.The characters are ridiculously stereotyped, and firstly the tough, racist, homophobic macho Mossad man, confronted with an easy going openly gay German and Palestinian.
Knowing how miserable the lives of gay Palestinians are, one should bear in mind that these characters are in no way representative.Yet, the movie was still worth watching for me, for the fresh, though inadequate point of view on German-Jewish relations.
After Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi), a Mossad agent, finds out his wife has committed suicide, he gets a rather secretive mission on a soft target as he must hunt down an old Nazi war criminal, directly related to the WW2 persecution of his (surviving) mother and boss Menachem (Gideon Shemer).
He starts off by posing as a tour guide for one of the grandchildren Axel (Knut Berger), leading him to Axel's sister Pia (Caroline Peters; her real grandfather was in the SS) and at the end to the family in Berlin.Walk on Water tries to mirror the past of Israel and Germany by letting two opposing characters mirror their differences.
Eyal is macho, a hit man and hates Palestinians and Germans; Axel is gay (also in real life, by the way), a pacifist, and shows great understanding for Palestinians.
Fox, an openly gay Israeli director, has directed a film about the subjects he is most familiar with: the problems of gay people, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the unhealed wounds between Jews and Germans.Based on an actual incident related to the director by his therapist, Walk on Water begins when Mossad agent Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi) efficiently carries out an assassination of a Hamas leader in broad daylight in front of hundreds of people including the leader's wife and young son.
Eyal accepts the temporary job of pretending to be a tour guide for the grandchildren of a Nazi war criminal, Alfred Himmelman, in hopes that they will lead him to their grandfather.He meets young Axel Himmelman (Knut Berger) an open, liberal-minded German who has come to visit his sister Pia (Carolina Peters) who lives and works on a kibbutz in Israel and refuses to have anything to do with her parents.
The ending of "Walk on Water" is telegraphed soon after the beginning when Israeli Mossad agent Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi) poses as a tour guide to befriend a young German brother and sister (Knut Berger and Caroline Peters) in hopes they will lead him to their elderly grandfather, a Nazi war criminal.
The movie was saved from being ruined by the ending, however, by Eyal's account of the dream he had, in which he and Axel finally walked on water.
An unusual spy thriller from Israel, Walk on Water's first scene follows Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi, a fine and handsome actor, somewhat reminiscent of Clive Owen, and who played a quite different character in the comedy Late Marriage), a tough-minded Mossad agent, as he coolly kills a Hamas operative in Istanbul in front of his family.
"Walk on Water" is an Israeli movie that depicts a friendship between a hyper-macho Israeli Mossad agent and the homosexual grandson of a very powerful Nazi war criminal.Sounds pretty deep, no?
This is a gripping and fascinating Israeli film from director Eytan Fox about a cold-blooded Mossad assassin, Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi), and his total transformation.
Some serious generation gaps growing in the German family here...It's when the film gets caught up in the plot, that I disagree with others here...this does sort of feel like a Hollywood movie, in a weird way.
Although not fully explained, I could somehow get past Axel killing his grandfather but it did bug me that it ended up being such a happy ending, especially with Eyal marrying Pia. I still really liked the movie but would've preferred the ending to have been a little longer with a bit more explanation.Also I didn't really get how Axel being gay had anything to do with the overall story?