Plot Summary
A Jewish-American woman still reeling from her breakup with her Spanish-Israeli fiance, 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.
Credits
Director
Screenwriters
Producers
Rotten Tomatoes Movie Reviews
TOMATOMETER
26%- Reviews Counted: 46
- Fresh: 12
- Rotten: 34
- Average Rating: 5.0/10
Top Critics' Reviews
Rotten: Amos Gitai's long-winded essay revolves around the interaction of three women, an American, an Israeli and a Palestinian, on a car trip from Israel to Jordan.
Rotten: Visually, Free Zone resembles a home movie in which an overly enthusiastic vacationer records every moment of a mundane trip.
Rotten: Per usual, Gitai largely eschews exposition, but his reticence sits awkwardly beside his penchant for saddling his deliberately stereotyped figures with trite, unwieldy speeches and symbolic-ironic biographical data.
Rotten: A minor movie on a major subject, a drama with an almost unbearable lightness.
Customer Reviews
Good Movie
Don't let that clip deceive you. This film is beautifully made with great performances and stellar cinematography. And Natalie Portmans really hot!!!!!!
amazing
this is a very good movie. watch it, hello, Natalie Portman.
Interesting movie (SPOILER ALERT!!)
(WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS!)
I just finished watching Free Zone. While long-winded and far from entertaining, Free Zone does a good job of symbolizing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, albeit in a quite mundane way. I hesitate being too critical of this movie, because I'm aware of Amos Gitai's message, but I feel like a lot of times during the movie, the film quality could have been better, the dialogue could have been more engaging (especially amidst the long-winded silences of the characters), the plot and characters could have been much more developed, and many times the scenes could have been less drawn out (e.g., the 5+ minute crying (opening) scene with Portman--sorry, but I though this scene was NEVER going to end!).
On the upside, there were two nice song selections in the movie (and only two), which included Chava Alberstein's "Had Gadya" (which had lyrics relevant to the movie's symbolism/message) and Fools of Prophecy's "Ein Ani."
The first half of this movie was especially drawn out, but the latter half was a little more interesting. All three actresses in this movie have loads of talent, and it shows in Free Zone, but not enough IMHO.
More than the rest of the movie combined, I did like the end of this movie, when Natalie Portman runs away at the border, sick of hearing the arguing between the Israeli and Jordanian woman. The movie ends with the two sides in total disagreement whilst "Had Gadya" plays once again (it had played at the beginning during the crying scene) in the background. I thought this was very fitting with the movie's message. I feel like the movie as a whole was not powerful and evocative enough. But good news is I felt this ending had enough power to make it (i.e. this particular scene) somewhat memorable.
I'd say if you're wanting to be entertained, avoid this movie, because you will be sorely disappointed. However, if you want a movie with a message relevant in today's world, then give it a go. You might be uninspired, but then again, you just might like it. The quality of Free Zone's artistry is in the eye of the beholder.
Viewers Also Bought
- Lying
- M Blash
- View In iTunes
- Still Green
- John Artigo
- View In iTunes
- American East
- Hesham Issawi
- View In iTunes
- Marie and Bruce
- Tom Cairns
- View In iTunes
- Cry Funny Happy
- Sam Neave
- View In iTunes