Customer Reviews

Under the Domim Tree [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a beautiful and moving film about the orphan children who survive the Holocaust and are sent on aliyah to Israel where they live together in a kibbutz. You will be moved to tears by this grippingly touching film which chronicles the lives of these wonderful children who have suffered so much.

This is the next chapter in Gila Almagor's coming-of-age autobiography, begun in her film, THE SUMMER OF AVIYA. UNDER THE DOMIM TREE (or crab apple tree) continues the story five years later, in the mid-1950s, in Israel. Aviya, now 15, lives in a youth village for war orphans and teenagers from troubled homes, where she and her new friends stand in as family for one another. Aviya searches for clues to the identity of her deceased father, endures the unpredictability of her emotionally unstable mother, Henya (played by Gila Almagor herself) and is pursued by Polish-born fellow teenager, Jurek, who desperately tries to win her heart. By day Aviya and her friends laugh, play and study like other teens; by night memories of their unspeakable losses return. They find refuge together under the domim (crabapple) tree, where the story finds its surprising and exhilarating climax. Filmed in a Zionism-realism style.