Arnon Grunberg

Loyalty

Salt

The Israeli movie “Footnote” by Joseph Cedar is about an academic, Eliezer Shkolnik (Shlomo Bar-Aba) whose claim to fame is a footnote in the book of a more prestigious academic.
A.O. Scott rightly praised this movie. Some people complained about the movie score in “Footnote”, others stated that the main characters, father and son Shkolnik, both academics, are unpleasant men.
As to the music score: I’m agnostic. As to the unpleasant people: a movie without them is like a meal without salt.
According to A.O. Scott “Footnote” is about “honesty, loyalty, ambition and love.” Yes, but above all it is about lying, about the need to lie in order to be morally good. The problem is that others might not see the moral justification of the lie; they just see the deception.
“Footnote” tells us that we want to know the truth even when it is bad for us. No, only when we suspect that the truth is going to hurt us our curiosity becomes unbearable.