The Flat

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12/31/2015 Watch this with Labyrinth of Lies. It's amazing what people don't want to know. See more 12/24/2015 When his aged grandmother dies, Arnon Goldfinger and his family need to clear her flat of over half a century's worth of collected possessions. What they unearth amongst her papers astonishes and puzzles them and so Goldfinger sets out to solve a mystery that the family never suspected. This brilliant documentary leads a man on a journey of discovery about his family and to some unexpected and difficult interviews with people who knew his grandparents. All families keep secrets and here we see a fascinating account of what happens when these secrets are gradually uncovered. The fact that Arnon Goldfinger manages to do so sensitively and daringly is a great testament to his skill. There is no blame or accusation or sensationalism, just a desire to uncover the truth and find out what really happened to bring his grandparents from Berlin to Tel Aviv. It was particularly moving to see the effect of this gradual unearthing has on Goldfinger's mother who clearly had no real idea of significant aspects of her own past but, after some initial denial, deals with them with grace and strength. See more 08/11/2015 Hard to understand this documentary.. not because of the film, but because of the content... Jews that are friends with SS officer? guess it comes down to human nature, and wanting to accept a person as an individual... See more 06/26/2015 A very interesting movie, raising lots of questions about guilt, how to deal with one's family's history, and how to understand one's family within history. See more walter m @Harlequin68 08/20/2014 A lot of families have skeletons in their closets. For Arnon Goldfinger(?!?), after his grandmother dies, he finds quite a few creepy looking mink stoles in her closet in her apartment in Israel. On a more metaphorical level, he discovers a friendship his grandparents had with a senior SS officer not only before World War II, but after. To be honest, that's not as weird as it sounds. That's for the simple reason that emigrants tend to identify more with the country they came from, then the one they move to, as his grandparents continued to speak German after they arrived in Israel, never learning to speak Hebrew.(As he recalled in his autobiography, Kirk Douglas remembers hearing German songs when he was filming on location in Israel which made him very, very angry.) At least, Arnon is in the right neighborhood when he talks about generational differences, even as he cannot truly overcome the home movie aesthetics of his documentary "The Flat." See more 06/12/2014 An Israeli independent documentary, that examine a personal relationship between the director, and his revelations about his dead grandparents. Tries to play out as a puzzle, but releases the big picture prematurely. Occasionally touching, with its highly personal creation, and touchy - but delicately handled- subject matter. The director does a great job as an observer, never letting emotion overtake the film. 2.5 stars + See more Read all reviews

The Flat

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