Product Details

• Actors: Natalie Portman, Hana Laszlo, Hiam Abbass, Carmen Maura, Makram Khoury
• Directors: Amos Gitai
• Format: Color, Widescreen
• Subtitles: French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Run Time: 94 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000N26QJ4
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #421,988 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Two women embark on a road trip after they are brought together by circumstance. Rebecca (Portman) flees her hotel after a fight with her mother-in-law (Maura) and hails a taxi driven by Hanna (Lazlo). Rebecca, a young American lady who has been living in Jerusalem for a while, suddenly breaks off her engagement with Julio, her Israeli fiancé. In a state of emotional shock she gets into a taxi and asks the diver to take her anywhere she likes but away from the place where she broke up. Although reluctant, Hanna, the driver lets her accompany her to Jordan's Free Zone where she is to meet "The American", her husband Moshe's Palestinian business partner. Once there, they realize "The American" is not there but a Palestinian woman named Leila offers them, after much bickering with Hanna, to take them to the oasis where "The American" lives...

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Inherent Confusion, October 31, 2007

By 

Valerie J. Saturen (Tacoma, WA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Free Zone (DVD)

For this reviewer, Free Zone was a film to be appreciated in an artistic sense, though not necessarily enjoyed. Writer/Director Amos Gitai (director of the excellent film Kadosh) does some interesting things, but it is hard to be moved by the film as a whole. In the film, chance brings together three women from different sides of an entrenched conflict...a Jewish Israeli, a Palestinian, and an American...for a journey to the Free Zone, an economic free area rife with shady business deals and, ironically, a fertile ground for intercultural interaction. A lengthy, emotional opening scene depicts Rebecca (Natalie Portman) sobbing and gazing out into a dusty, chaotic Jerusalem against a stirring rendition of the Passover song "Chad Gadya." The song has been adapted as a lament over the endless chain of violence, its tension building in rising crescendos. Later, we learn that Rebecca has jumped into the cab driven by Hanna, the Israeli character, out of a desperate desire to leave the country after her Israeli fiancé confesses to raping a Palestinian woman while on military duty. The film is very nonlinear, and will not appeal to those who like their movies to have a discernible plot and to end with a clear resolution or catharsis. Most of the movie takes place inside Hanna's cab, where a slow dialog is juxtaposed with dreamlike flashbacks. Because of the dreamlike quality and the minimal background offered about the characters, the movie is hard to follow, and I found myself missing out on the more evocative scenes because I was too busy trying to figure out what was going on.

Although Free Zone has a lot of potential and contains some moments of insight, what detracts from the film is its attempt to combine two incompatible genres: the art film and the political film. The political side of the film tries to create a metaphor with each of the characters, whose interactions represent a particular interpretation of the conflict, while the art side embraces ambiguity and is not meant to be "interpreted" at all. The fusion of the two genres leads to confusion, because the viewer is unsure whether to look for the film's underlying "message" or to simply allow the disjointed images to filter into the subconscious.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I Have To Agree with the Above Review, July 28, 2007

By 

Joseph M. Davis (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Free Zone (DVD)

This film is relatively boring, simply put. You are basically watching Natalie Portman being driven around Israel and Jordan for the first half of the film. I didn't think that her Hebrew was as flawless as the press/pr would lead you to believe either. The film is in Arabic, Hebrew and English. I love seeing foreign language films but this dvd is annoying because the subtitle button is very tricky to use. Hiam Abbas is beautiful and talented and breaths some fresh air into this halfway through but not enough to save it. Natalie Portman is not as annoying as she usually is with her overexposed and affected way but she is completely ineffective here. I gave the film an extra star because it offers a safe way to do a road trip around the Middle East, i.e. by being able to watch it from the safety of your couch. It is kind of interesting to be driving along and suddenly see signs pointing toward the ominous destinations that Americans are fearful of having to visit, i.e. Iraq, Syria, etc. And much of the film is spent in a car reading road signs.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, February 26, 2007

By 

Music Fan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Free Zone (DVD)

Considering all the positive press surrounding this film, I had high expectations. I ended up disappointed. I could barely stay awake - and the movie's only 90 minutes long. The much-ballyhooed opening shot of Natalie Portman is underwhelming. Six minutes of her crying, with a soundtrack like a Middle East version of "I Know An Old Lady..." left me shaking my head. The only good thing about that opening scene is that there are only about 84 minutes to go! I didn't find any of the three main characters very engaging, and I didn't find the cliched "cultures clash, try to get along, and ultimately end up bickering again" motif particularly enlightening. The packaging says the movie is 93 minutes long; I was actually glad the credits started rolling after about 85 minutes.