Product Details

• Actors: Lucy Dubinchik, Halil Elohev, Johnny Peterson, Maya Maron, Maya De-Fries
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: Hebrew, Russian
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Kino International
• VHS Release Date: May 26, 1998
• Run Time: 85 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304936796
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #392,473 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Israel Academy Winner, April 8, 2000

By 

Larry Mark "editor of MyJewishBooks.com" (nyc) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Saint Clara/Personal Goals [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Based on a story by the Czech writers Pavel and Yelena Kohout. Winner of Israel's 1996 equivalent of the Academy Award. A futuristic Israeli film about a clairvoyant seventh grader named Clara, a Russian immigrant to a small Israeli town in the Negev Desert who lives in a trailer at the edge of town. Like many adolescents, she hates her teachers and principal at Golda Meir High School. The town is thrown into a tumult by her arrival (i.e. - is this a metaphor for the arrival of new immigrants? Does Golda Meir High represent the old Labor Party?), and she must deal with her fame as a fortune teller (forseeing the winning Lotto numbers), and must choose whether to lose her gifts in return for the love of the local rebel hunk (i.e.- is this a metaphor for assimilation) or to keep her mystical powers. A story of teen love of the anarchic rebellion punk variety. (Lots of nutty Russian characters from Israel's Gesher Theatre Troupe)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oh, Clara of the violet eyes!, June 25, 2000

By 

A. C. Walter "awalter" (Lynnwood, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Saint Clara/Personal Goals [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A class of Israeli junior high kids has discovered a miracle in its midst. One of the students, Clara, a 13 year old Russian immigrant, has begun to see the future. This singular talent arrives suddenly like an unexpected blessing from the gods of puberty, and for a few exciting days, Clara's predictions about math tests and lottery numbers turn her world upside down.
And what a world it is. The film, released in 1996, is set three years in the future in an absurdist, industrial cityscape. The school kids talk tough about revolution as they tromp through polluted swamps and through streets lined with huge squares of beehive apartment buildings. The city seems on the very cusp of apocalypse, though it's not clear whether the final crisis will issue from a man-made ecological disaster or from the hand of God in an earthquake. Meanwhile, the revolution threatens to develop into a new religion, with Saint Clara at the center. The entire city listens for her predictions, adult men get crushes on her, and of course the boys in her class end up fighting over her.
To complicate things for Clara, her powers may disappear if she falls in love. One of her admirers, Tikel, has a good chance with her though. He's obsessed with her violet eyes, and chicks always fall for that-at least in junior high. "I think your visions come from your eyes," he tells her.
"Saint Clara" really is about as good as movies get. It's a beautiful thing to be able to imagine the near-future, accelerate the world's problems, and just continue to smile at life. In this way, "Saint Clara" is reminiscent of the irresistibly optimistic films Wim Wenders has been making over the past decade. Perhaps the film's best surprise, however, is the voracious, adolescent energy which tints its vision. All the kids in the film are bursting with potential, thirsty for life, and the adults are sad but charming caricatures, thinly-veiled trolls and witches, forever dreaming of their lost youth. A naïve misconception, certainly, but here it is also fantastically endearing.
Kudos to Kino Video for making this gem available on video. And don't miss the sweet little film at the end of the tape: "Personal Goals."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary, February 20, 2000

By 

Particle Man (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Saint Clara [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I'm startled that a film as moving as this one is in danger of out-of-print status. This unique love story (which garnered numerous awards at international film festivals and won several Israeli "Oscars")is the type of film that should turn heads stateside, and whose directors should be revered as Israeli Spielbergs, though this is more interesting than anything HE ever created. If you havn't seen this, and if the admittedly exorbitant expense doesn't discourage you, check it out. It's worth it.