A Disappointing Continuation

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Israeli settlement, yeshiva with a dangerous, charismatic rabbi, and a military unit of devout young orthodox Jews. Combination of fundamentalist approach to faith and proximity of weapons, always a very bad idea.Mix in two young men and the rebellious daughter of the above-mentioned rabbi Meltzer, and there we have a love triangle. I usually thoroughly enjoy Israeli cinematography known for its freshness and creativity, but " Time of Favor" falls short. Could be the lack of knowledge about the Orthodox branch of Judaism on my part ( i am not Jewish), or possibly the muddled vision of the director. I am not sure, but what's left is a tackle on this universal problem of religious fundamentalists who, of course believing that they are the only ones with the right answers, feel obliged to demolish everybody else. Sad state of affairs but not enough for a movie.

The TV guide described TIME OF FAVOUR as thus: " A rabbi's daughter must choose between the man she loves and the man her father wants her to marry " So I sat down to watch a movie that I expected to be a romantic drama , and being an Israeli film I also expected to see some secular Vs religious politics . But this isn't what I got . For the most part the story does indeed play out as a love triangle between the rabbi's daughter on one hand and two friends in the IDF on another , but then about two thirds of the way through it becomes clear that this is a political thriller featuring a bomb plot not too different from something Bruce Willis might have appeared in several years ago . When I say becomes clear I mean after one of the character's gets a bloody good kicking off the Shin Bett , up to this point I was asking myself where on Earth the movie was heading There's two ways of looking at this . One is that TIME OF FAVOR is a highly complex film , the other being that it's a highly unfocused one . I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and say it's complex one . It should also be pointed out that if you have absolutely no knowledge or interest of Israeli politics or culture clash you will be at a loss trying to understand this movie , though it's difficult to imagine someone watching a movie in Hebrew - albeit in subtitles - who doesn't have any interest in Israel

When I saw the DVD of this at Blockbuster, I thought it would be interesting for I am interested in the West Bank in Israel and the people who live there (called "settlers" because they live in so called "Arab" land, which is really Jewish land). It is about a rabbi who runs his own Israeli military unit in the West Bank. The rabbi's favorite Hebrew student is in love with the rabbi's daughter, while the daughter is really in love with a dashing young military unit leader. The film is basically the soldiers hanging around, doing military training, while the rabbi's student tries to get with his daughter while the daughter is trying to get with the unit leader. It is a drama-less love triangle until the end, when they find that several large quantities of explosives have been stolen from the military depot and it turns out that the rabbi's student is going to blow up the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem so that the Jewish Temple can be rebuilt there (the 3,000 year-old temple destroyed by the Romans). So basically, the end comes and the soldiers find the student underneath the mosque and shoot him before he can detonate the explosives. This is like many other European and Middle Eastern films, it has more to do with scenery and art than with actual drama. It won Best Picture at the Israeli National Film Awards and I can believe it, but it is generally boring unless you are absolutely crazy about love-triangle films. See this if you like foreign films, but if you are looking for a true drama, see something else. This is a good film but it feels like something is missing

This is the first Israeli film I have seen and I really wanted to get to know more about the citizens via this route. Though I did learn some things, it isn't enough to recommend. The director presumes the audience knows the situation and all the locales. Though I keep up with the news daily, I just couldn't identify with the West Bank settlers. The undertone of religious renegades and dark collusion just wasn't filmed correctly. The scenes kept jumping around and I wanted to call the editor and ask why there couldn't be more of a flow to the sequences. I am looking forward to seeing more Israeli productions. Perhaps I can learn more of that beseiged society that I didn't feel here.