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Poster for Kippur

Kippur

2000 · 1h 57m · N/A Drama, War
Directed by Amos Gitai

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Overview

The film takes place in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War in which Egypt and Syria launched attacks in Sinai and the Golan Heights. The story is told from the perspective of Israeli soldiers. We are led by Weinraub and his friend Ruso on a day that begins with quiet city streets, but ends with death, destruction and devastation of both body and mind. Various scenes are awash in the surreal, as Weinraub's head hangs out over a rescue helicopter's open door, watching with tranquil desperation as the earth passes beneath, the overpowering whir of the blades creating a hypnotic state. It is not a traditional blood, guts and glory film. There are no men in battle, only the rescue crew trying to pick up the broken pieces.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
Rotten

A patience-trying docudrama almost completely devoid of any trace of narrative structure or even defined characters.

Michael Rechtshaffen, Hollywood Reporter
Fresh

A classic war film, at once elegiac and immediate, that takes you smack into the chaos of combat yet is marked by a detached perspective.

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
Fresh

Gitai plunges the viewer into the reality of modern warfare, in which the enemy is often invisible -- we never see the Syrians in Kippur -- and battle lines are often unclear.

Fred Camper, Chicago Reader
Fresh

The relentless attention to the sheer awfulness of war, which is the film's great strength, is also something of a shortcoming.

A.O. Scott, New York Times

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