Manohla Dargis in NYT on the movie "Foxtrot" by Samuel Maoz:

'It’s a grabber of an opening in a movie that builds into a devastating indictment of a nation, shock by shock, brutal moment by brutal moment. (The movie is Israel’s Oscar entry in the foreign-language category.) Meaning surfaces slowly here in details, flashes of cruelty, glimmers of apathy and a mounting sense of helplessness. First, though, there are parental tears and Dafna and Michael’s handsome, sparsely furnished apartment with its tidy bookshelves and modernist furniture. The biggest room, where Michael lingers while watching Dafna collapse, has a geometrically patterned floor and is so large and precisely arranged that it suggests a showroom. At times, it also evokes a stage.

With Dafna asleep in the bedroom, Michael initially suffers and mourns alone. His red eyes watering yet not quite spilling over, he understandably seems to be in shock. The soldiers have tended to him, too, fussing and hovering over him; in one shot, he looks up at them as if he were a child. His brother (Yehuda Almagor), comes by and begins busily arranging a memorial notice. Two women rush in as well, including Michael and Dafna’s daughter (Shira Haas). Everyone plays his or her part. The soldiers re-enter, and one comfortably settles into a chair and rather too blithely proposes funeral arrangements to Michael, sketching in every detail with the fastidious attention of a wedding planner.'

Read the review here.

This is a great movie about mourning and boredom and about a forgotten aspect of both mourning and boredom: eroticism.