Walk On Water

Herald rating: * * *


At times facile and contrived, but with more honest ambitions than a dozen studio projects that purport to address geopolitical issues, this independent Swedish-Israeli co-production grapples with Israeli nationalism and the legacy of the Holocaust sincerely, with more enthusiasm than focus.

Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi) is a Mossad agent who specialises in efficient covert liquidation of Palestinian terrorists. The political and ethical complications of his job trouble him not a bit.

"They're animals," he says, when one character asks him what drives Palestinian suicide bombers.

Assigned to track down a Nazi war criminal, Eyal masquerades as a tourist guide to the target's grown-up grandchildren, Pia (Peters) who is living on a kibbutz and Axel (Berger) who is coming to visit. His contact with the youngsters throws Eyal into several crises at once and, in trying to dispose of all of them, the film gets a bit cluttered as issues such as homophobia, German guilt vs Israeli obsession, family secrets and racial intolerance all get a trot.

Worse, as the plot thickens in the final third, some events strain credulity: it may be harder than this film suggests to carry a handgun on a flight from Tel Aviv to Berlin, for example.

But the small ensemble cast works well together turning in performances of unforced conviction and the movie provides an informative tour of modern Israel that makes it more than watchable.

CAST: Lior Ashkenazi, Gidon Shemer, Knut Berger and Carolina Peters
DIRECTOR: Eytan Fox
RUNNING TIME: 103 minutes
RATING: M, adult themes
SCREENING: Rialto