Golda

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From the opening scene and for the longest time I thought this 'movie' was nothing more than a very boring cigarette commercial. All the characters had a smoke going at all times. The tobacco companies had to be happy; even though they must have tossed in a pretty penny for the production costs. The character portraying Golda Meir should have been made more believable along with that one-eyed Dayan. It would have made the movie more realistic and engaging. Personally I don't care for these revisionist films. I wish they would have stuck more to actual historical events other than inventing stuff along the way. Unfortunately, historical accuracy was not utilized in the production, which would have made the film more realistic and worthy of a watch.

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source: Golda

A gripping look into the terrible mistakes that nearly led to Israel's destruction in 1973, this film follows one of the most important women political leader of modern times, Golda Meir, showing how her carefully crafted interaction with Israeli and American leaders and her strength of character guided Israel through the Yom Kippur War and precipitated peace with Egypt. The film captures the inside story--showing how Golda handled Moshe Dayan's breakdown, Kissinger's ultimatum, and the terrible consequences of the Bar Lev line. A must-see for those who enjoy political thrillers and anyone interested in the Cold War!

Much of this story-- Golda Meir's handling of the Yom Kippur War-- is well known to those of us who were around at the time. But it's been fifty years since then. It's even been forty years since Ingrid Bergman starred in "A Woman Called Golda." So the story is worth telling to a new audience even if the surprises are few. (Credited under "Thanks" is Zvi Zamir, and for me one surprise is that as portrayed in the movie, he tips Golda off to some facts that weren't known to the public at the time-- and I must have missed them if they were revealed later.) Helen Mirren's physical transformation into Golda has been much praised, but I can't say I bought it. Her appearance varied too much from scene to scene, and her cheeks in particular were often wrong-- insufficiently droopy. Other distractions include an occasionally quirky musical score and an inclination by the director to occasionally go expressionistic or even surrealistic. But a movie that treats Israel relatively kindly is a nice thing to come upon in 2023. At the opening, there's a quick review of Israel's history from 1948 to 1973, and that review could be faulted for extreme reluctance to offend Israel's attackers and for ending with an accusation of "hubris" on Israel's part, but it's quickly counterbalanced by the sympathetic focus on Golda. The other characters are almost props. There's no attempt to make Liev Schreiber look like Henry Kissinger, although he has the voice down startlingly pat. The role of Lou Keddar is a thankless one, because she's one-dimensionally angelic. She is, after all, the source of the lion's share of inside information that the world has about Golda. The actors playing Golda's security advisors include some of Israel's best, but mostly they just recite exposition in an appropriate tone of voice. If you don't know much about the Yom Kippur War, this is a good movie to watch. If you know the history, maybe just watch if anyway for Helen Mirren and try to ignore the awkward mask pasted onto her face.

Helen Mirren portrays the Israeli Prime Minister during the Yom Kippur War. When you're talking about a movie about a politician -- or stateswoman, if you prefer -- how much of it real, how much of it made up legends? Did Moshe Dayan really have a nervous breakdown and start shouting for Israel to use the A-Bomb? Was Golda Meier coughing up blood during the war? Did she make Henry Kissinger eat her cook's borscht by telling him the woman was a survivor? Any Jew knows that if a survivor of the death camps offers you something, particularly food, you must accept with thanks and praise it. But did it happen? What I do know is that Helen Mirren's prosthetics make her look like Mrs. Meir, and she was born to play tough ladies, just as Liev Schreiber's hair line was made to play Henry Kissinger's. We'll never know exactly what happened and who said what, despite the many history books that will be written about it. But it's an engrossing movie that is quite believable.