Laurent Truchot Movies

Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai offers an impressionistic look at his nation's long history of armed conflict in this experimental feature. Carmel begins with a recreation of a battle from the first century, with Hebrews fighting off an invading Roman army, and the cascade of images that follows explores the theme of war and violence in Israeli history. The film also touches on the war of 1973 Yom Kippur War (which Gitai himself fought in) and current waves of terrorism and violence, as well as the less aggressive but equally telling conflicts that are a part of everyday life and the role of the media in feeding a culture of brutality and reprisal. Carmel features narration from the legendary French actress Jeanne Moreau and an eclectic musical score than runs the gamut from Gustav Mahler to the Israeli punk rock band the Jews. Carmel was an official selection at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A Jewish-American woman still reeling from her breakup with her Spanish-Israeli fiancée hits the road with a middle-aged Israeli woman, who is looking to collect the 30,000-dollar debt owed to her by her husband's former business partner, and a Palestinian woman, who claims to know the elusive moneyman's whereabouts, in this road-trip drama from Kippur director Amos Gitai. In her efforts to escape the painful memory of her breakup with former fiancée Julio (Aki Avni), Rebecca (Natalie Portman) agrees to accompany Hanna (Hanna Laslo) on her arduous journey through Israel to the Free Zone -- a tax- and customs-free region where those from countries at war with one another amiably buy and sell cars -- in hopes of collecting a large debt owed to her by her ailing husband's business partner known only as "The American." When Hanna and Rebecca finally arrive in the Free Zone only to discover that Hanna's contact and money have mysteriously gone missing, a Palestinian woman named Leila (Hiam Abbass) agrees to lead the skeptical Hanna to both "The American" and Hanna's rightly due cash. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Directed by Amos Gitai, Alila is based on Yehoshua Kenaz's novel Returning Lost Love and chronicles the trials and tribulations of every day life in Tel Aviv. Most of the film revolves around an apartment block on the working-class borders of Tel Aviv, where the trysts of residents Hezi (Amos Lavie) and Gabi (Yael Abecassis) attract their neighbors' attention, as does the unauthorized construction of an additional wing to the building. A neighboring family patriarch, meanwhile, is dealing with legal troubles (he hired illegal Chinese construction workers), the AWOL status of his son, and his wife's affair with a younger man. A Holocaust survivor (Yosef Carmon) and his Filipino housekeeper (Lyn Shiao Zamir) further illustrate the conflict between Jews, Jews of different extractions, and Arabs in the community. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

In the aftermath of the tragedies on September 11, 2001, the French film company Studio Canal called upon a group of filmmakers, representing various regions of the world, to address the scope of the situation in however broad or intimate a context as they saw fit. The one guideline they were given was that no one film could exceed 11 minutes, nine seconds, and one frame. The resulting omnibus film, 11'09"01, showed at festivals around the world the following year and garnered a theatrical release in 2003. Each filmmaker's entry takes a different approach: French director Claude Lelouch tells the tale of a World Trade Center tour guide who is on the verge of a breakup with his deaf girlfriend when the terrorist attacks hit; similarly, Hollywood actor-director Sean Penn chronicles the lonely existence of an old man living not far from the Twin Towers. Egyptian director Youssef Chahine and British social realist filmmaker Ken Loach created the most controversy with their entries, which, respectively, address the points-of-view of a suicide bomber and of a Chilean who recalls the brutal coup funded by the United States in his country on September 11, 1973. Alejandro González Iñárritu's piece is the most abstract, taking images from television on the day of the attacks and cutting them with selected bursts of sound. Samira Makhmalbaf, Danis Tanovic, and Idrissa Ouedraogo all tell small-scale stories of the effects of the attacks on tiny villages in Iran, Serbia, and Burkina Faso, respectively. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

The directors of this 16mm French-Israeli documentary, Palestinian Elia Suleiman (Chronicle of a Disappearance) and Israeli Amos Gitai, travel from Paris to the War and Peace Film Festival in Vesoul. On the train, the longtime friends chat about their pasts in Haifa and Nazareth, their passports, and foreign travel. In Vesoul, they meet with both the festival director and the French-speaking press (with Gitai translating for Suleiman). Shown at the 1997 Venice Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

This Israeli drama is based on Yaakov Shabtai's novel Past Continuous and tells the story of three men living in Tel Aviv. Caesar loves his wife and son; he is devastated that they have separated. Now he leads a miserable life in a run-down apartment shared with the sluggardly Israel, a dead-beat musician. Together the two set off to attend the funeral of their friend Goldman's father. Unfortunately, they cannot find the right cemetery. Later the story shifts to their complex love lives. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide