Reviews

I think the so-called suicide bombers and the whole culture that creates and nurtures them (seen most notably in Palestine) are so despicable and so low-life, that any attempt to rationalize, understand, "feel their pain" deserves no respect. Any human being who is willing to take lives of innocent civilians, no matter what his/her motivation, should be treated the same way as harmful bacteria that must be eradicated.

This film shows the suicide bomber as a human being worthy of sympathy. She is soft-spoken, polite, capable of human emotion, certainly not evil on personal level. Are we supposed to feel sorry for her, when she could not execute her task???

Supporting characters in the movie, except the black guy in the ending, look ridiculous and very unprofessional.

I'd like to start with a positive note: I liked the performance of Elpidia Carrillo.

I did not care much for the rest of the movie.

It has been shown, again and again, that trade unions are bad for the American economy. The UAW union has been "successfully" destroying the American automobile industry; the teachers' union has been no less successfully destroying the American schools; et cetera, et cetera. But these minor details shouldn't matter, should they, when we watch "Bread and Roses"?

This movie, if you take it seriously, wants you to believe that without a union, the only way for a woman to get a job for herself or for her sister is to sleep with the boss; otherwise she can only support her family by becoming a prostitute.

The cute female lead, an illegal Mexican immigrant, robs a gas station, but we are supposed to sympathize with her because this is "for a good cause".

The male lead, a union organizer, steals the food from a table in a restaurant, and we are supposed to admire him for that and other examples of outrageous anti-social behavior.

The demonstrators, when asked for their names by the police, give the names of Mexican revolutionary figures, and we are supposed to laugh at the stupidity of the American policemen.

The illegals, oops, the undocumented workers, struggle to improve their lot in this country, instead of doing the same in their own country, or waiting in line to come here legally. We of course are expected to fully support them, to embrace them, to learn their language, to sing their songs. It shouldn't cross our mind that they have already broken the law of this country by crossing the border illegally and just for that alone should be treated as criminals.

And that's both funny and outrageously shameful.

The movie looks to me as a learning exercise, no more, for a movie director, cameraman, and the actors. They all have a lot to learn, to say the least. The fact that the movie has achieved some level of success in Europe, shows how low has European cinema has sunk.

I agree that absence of musical score was a good idea.

The young actors look right for the parts they are playing, but they are not playing that well, at least they are in dire need of more help from the director. Plus, they have practically nothing to work with, so terrible the script is. We are supposed to believe in the miraculous transition of the lead female character from an irresponsible childish girl to an almost mature woman. We are supposed to believe that her moronic delinquent boyfriend is also on his way to some kind of maturity and responsibility. Somehow, I do not believe that for a second.

On a lighter side, did you notice how the baby looks different in different scenes, and contrary to logic, his size is smaller at the end of the movie than it was in the beginning?

The movie is obviously full of good intentions. Also, it has its portion of funny scenes, like the one when guests at a birthday party of a high-ranking German who is a son of a Nazi criminal, dance an Israeli folk dance without realizing what they are doing.

Politically, however, it is one-sided to say the least. Genocidal attacks by Palestinian terrorists on the Israeli civilian population are played down, they are even subject of a joke. Their victims remain faceless.

On the other had, when Eyal, the Mossad operative, kills an innocently looking Arab, we sympathize fully with his wife and small child as helpless victims of a horrible crime.

A gay Arab is shown is an intelligent and tolerant person, while Eyal demonstrates his simple-mindedness with comments like "There is nothing to think about, Arabs are animals".

To me, nothing rings true in this movie. It is a naive fantasy of the part of the Israeli cultural elite, the "blame Israel first" crowd that learned nothing from history and from the failure of Oslo, that still has no idea about why Arabs not only hate Jews, but are more than willing to terrorize and kill them indiscriminately.

It's kind of a remake of the Jesus Christ story. A guy (a young boy in this case) comes up with a brilliant new idea of how to make people and the world better. SPOILER ALERT The idea looks absolutely non-practical to many around him. However he finds his first followers among destitute people who become his devout disciples. Gradually the number of followers grows, miracles happen, human lives are saved. Finally, the leader brings on himself the death of a martyr, the movement he started becomes a powerful force, and the masses worship their hero.