Product Details

• Language: Hebrew
• Subtitles: English
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B003DVLPQG
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #336,683 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Jaffa" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Absorbing and touching - Well acted! --Ray Bennett, The Hollywood Reporter

Engaging! --Joe Bende, The Epoch Times

About the Director

Keren Yedaya: This is the second film by Director Keren Yedaya. Her first film, Or (or My Treasure in English) won numerous accolades, including the Critics Week Grand Prix and the Camera dOr at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Israeli family drama, March 19, 2011

By 

Paul Allaer (Cincinnati) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jaffa (DVD)

I have been a fas of the Film Movement library of foreign and indie movies for some time now, and have rarely been disappointed. This movie was no exception.

"Jaffa" (106 min; originally released in 2009) is named after the historic (and achitecturally very interesting) town of Jaffa, bordering on the south side of Tel Aviv. The Wolf family runs a garage in Jaffa. Besides the father and his 2 kids (20 yr. old boy Meir, and 21 yr. old girl Mali), there are also 2 Arab employees in the shop, a boy named Toufik and his dad. Unbeknownst to anyone, Mali and Toufik have fallen in love, Mali is pregnant and they are planning to elope soon. Then in one dramatic moment, everything changes when Meir and Toufik get in a fight, with tragic results. Mali now faces some painful choices within her family. Most interestingly, in the last 30 min. or so, the movie picks up the story 9 years later. Why? You'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out!

Let me immediately disagree with the first reviewer's basic sentiment that "it just doesn't work". Sorry, but it actually works very nicely. No, this is not standard "Hollywood fare", and that's perfectly fine with me. In fact I wish Hollywood would stop making the umteenth "refresh" of say the Superman or Batman movies, and actually come up with some original ideas. I also was impressed by the acting work from Dana Ivgy, who plays Mali. In all, I quite liket this movie. Last but not least, I was in Israel last November for a week, and our hotel in Tel Aviv looks out onto Jaffa. It's a great place and I would highly recommend visiting it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sad but wrought with insight, March 11, 2011

By 

Thomas P. Noland (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Jaffa (DVD)

Following the Jewish-Arab dynamic in Israel is many things. It can be depressing, infuriating and even filled with hope. But it is never boring.

Jaffa follows much the same pattern.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Just doesn't work., January 8, 2011

By 

Chris Swanson "I'm just this guy, you know?" (Phoenix) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jaffa (DVD)

(special thanks to Film Movement for providing me with a screener!)

I can't help but think that Israel must be a very unpleasant place to live. I wouldn't mind visiting there sometime (I'm a sucker for history), but I certainly wouldn't want to live there. This movie, a 2009 Israeli film, does nothing to change my mind about that.

Jaffa tells the story of a young Jewish woman who is in love with a Palestinian man who works in her father's garage. She's hiding her relationship with him from her parents and the two have plans to elope. She's also not yet told her parents that she's pregnant. Meantime her boyfriend has to put up with lots of crap from her brother, who seems to resent the fact that his sister's boyfriend is much better at his job than he is. The day before the wedding, the two come to blows and the brother is accidentally killed. Things go downhill from there.

I never really connected with any of the characters in this movie. The Palestinian man seems like the only really good one in the bunch. The girl's parents and brother all seem to dislike Palestinians in general to greater and lesser degrees. As for the girl herself, if she could bother to tell the truth at just about any point in the film, most of what happens wouldn't have happened. Instead she's constantly lying and creating more and more problems for herself and everyone around her.

On a technical level this is a decent enough film. It's well shot and looks good, but the story is basically a retred of Romeo and Juliet without that play's sense of fun and happiness. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but in this movie, with these characters, it really does not work.