This is one of those really bad films. Actually there isn't too much to say. Boring script, shallow stereotypical characters and long unending scenes. "ART FILM" at its worst. Some of the camera shots were nicely made though, I have to agree. And Channa Laszlo does a good work as leading actress.
OK, now let's forget about that. Another boring film from Gitai. Nothing new. What interests me as a film-goer from Israel is the question: How come Gitai is the most successful Israeli film maker in international audiences.
There are other much more talented Israeli directors such as Avi Nesher, Dover Koshashvili, Gil Dar or Keren Yadaaia. So why Gitai? Well it is a known fact that the French and European audiences love him because of his left wing ideas. He flatters the European views on Israel and he sells himself in Europe as an Israeli dissident and exile unacknowledged or even censored by Israeli establishment for his so called radical views.
As an Israeli left winger, let me tell you. Nobody cares enough about Gitai to even bother to censor him. The truth of the matter is that if you know the Israeli reality only a bit, it becomes immediately apparent how phony and untruthful his films are. His view of Israel, the way you see it in "Free Zone" is like that of the tourist he is, coming to Israel from Paris to make a new film and watching the whole of Israeli reality condescendingly from his know-all glasses.
This is the reason why all his films fail in Israel both critically as well as in the box office. Not because of his "radical" political views. Israeli audiences can cope with criticism, but not with Gitai's packs of cliché's. It is a shame audiences in the world who don't know the situation in Israel well enough, get their impression from such phony works.
4/10
