Footnote

Footnote (2011) starring Schlomo Bar-Abba, Lior Ashkenazi, Alisa Rosen, Alma Zak. Israeli film, nominated for best foreign language Academy Award, involves a father and son who both work in an extremely narrow field of Talmudic scholarship. The father does obscure and extremely detailed research, while the son writes popular books and has been very successful. The crux of the film comes when the father is accidentally informed that he has won a prestigious award which, in fact, should have been awarded to his son. The movie is both a drama and a comedy, since it has moments of high humor, and at the same time plumbs the depths of the human soul. I felt that there was some loss due to translation from Hebrew to English, but when it was over I felt as if I had seen a masterpiece. (The film is in Hebrew with English subtitles.) Grade: A