|
|
Whistle Stopper - Everything Is Illuminated
|
List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $12.75
Your Save: $ 7.23 ( 36% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Eugene Hutz, Elijah Wood, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jana Hrabetova, Stephen Samudovsky
Directed By: Liev Schreiber
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0012569593428
Format: AC-3
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2006-03-21
Running Time: 105
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 2005-09-16
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: A very authentic and evocative movie
Comment: This is a wonderful and beautiful movie. It is witty and well acted, but the most important thing about it is the evocative tension created by the story and the cinematography.
The movie in all relevant dimensions establishes and explores a number of basic tensions between life and death, old and new, beautiful and ugly, sad and humorous, smart and stupid, grand and small and feelings and senses. It is just beautiful and completely captivating in the same way as the Ukraine itself.
What I enjoy most is the outright honesty in which this movie captures the paradoxes and essences of a Ukraine searching for itself in this modern world.
I had the unique experience of visiting Kiev recently and I was awed by its purity and its strangeness. There is the old way of life and the new way of life. Also there is the ugliness of Communism and the pride of something new. Finally, there is the traditional way of Ukrainian life which is little changed in the villages and farms versus the struggle for modernity in the cities.
Just as in this movie, Ukraine itself is hauntingly pure and innocent but also soiled and disturbed by its wish to set aside Communism and move forward -- but to a settled way of life that is not plagued by sentimentality.
I fear I am too abstract in my description, but I am trying to set out the feelings and senses that are evoked in me by both this movie and Ukraine itself. There are plenty of reviews that tell the story and the plot. I want to add the senses and feelings that the movie urges in me. I suspect it will do the same for others curious enough to look. I can see in the movie a very original depiction of exactly what I saw and felt in the cities and countrysides of Ukraine. In this way I learned how very thoroughly Western I am.
The so called "rigid tour" in this movie reminds me vividly of the ride I took in a taxi (with a dozen people) crowded in a small van from Kiev to Chernihiv. It was the same worn down vehicle and yet the same sense of determination and acceptance. Along the way I could see weddings in the forest clearings and I observed a coffin being taken to the rustic graveyard. This movie raises images that are etched in my mind from that actual experience.
Quite aside from the story which is both interesting and witty, the movie simply captures the entire essence of the place and the people. The story is famous enough as some describe the underlying book as a cult classic. For me, I have never read the book but I would also not want to. The emotional response I have to the movie itself is as much as I could ask. I really would find it hard to become more involved in the story or the images.
If you are curious about Ukraine and its people today, this is the movie to see. It is all there. Oh yes, in Kiev they are hip like Alex. Kiev was once the greatest capital of Europe, but that was 1200 years ago. For all its drive to be modern, Kiev is melancholy because it is a Holy place where it is a center of Russian Orthodox faith and were the stark realities of the Soviet era and the World War II devastation are clearly in evidence still.
Again I know I am streaming with emotion rather than attacking this with logic. But, that is the place and this is the movie. The movie's great value is not in what it makes you think, but how it makes you feel.
To me Alex is a prototypical Ukrainian young man. He is smart and he is sensitive and he wants to be somebody in the modern world. He is a metaphor for Ukraine today. Jonathan, the central character is the voyager in all of us. The grandfather is the struggle in everyone's heart and the bittersweet taste of a life of love and resignation.
It is all in the movie and that is the heart and soul of Ukraine. Keep plenty of Kleenex around. Yet you will be redeemed and the beauty and humor of it all will stay with you always. Everything is Illuminated.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Everything is Premium
Comment: I have yet to read the book, but for a long time I'd thought of seeing this movie, the cover with the sunflowers and the cloudy lenses of Elijah Wood catching my eyes (I'm a sucker for sunflowers, what can I say?). Then discovering Eugene Hutz, lead singer of Gogol Bordello (a group which I am totally obsessed with), was in the movie, helped get me to the video store to finally check it out. And I'm glad I did, because I fell in love with this wonderful, quirky, thoughtful, hilarious, melancholy film.
Wood plays Jonathan Safran Foer, who goes to Ukraine in search of his roots after his grandmother dies, and he is given a photo of his grandfather with a woman in a field taken during World War II (his family is Jewish). Jonathan has a curious collector's habit of stashing souvenirs (retainers, used condoms, false teeth, jewelry, etc.) in plastic baggies and displaying the collection on the walls of his home. So he heads to Ukraine, and there meets up with his tour guide and translator, played by Stephen Samudovsky and Hutz.
Their road trip begins, and the first part is hilarious with the cultural differences emerging (the Ukrainian grandfather and grandson can't figure out why Jonathan would be a vegetarian and figure he must be crazy), and Hutz's Alex is a scene-stealer with his thesaurus-gleaned English ("I am a premisum dancer!" "Women want to be carnal with me because I am such a premium dancer!")
It's very funny and amusing and then things grow more dark and serious as the truth comes out Jonathan's family's past, and Alex finds out some surprising truths about his country's history as well as his family's.
On top of that, the scenery is beautiful (that field of sunflowers!) and the music is wonderful, Eastern European music.
Samudovsky is fanatastic as the cranky, cantankerous and haunted grandfather.
Liev Schrieber put together a wonderful road trip film, now a part of my DVD collection so I can watch any time I wish. Premium!
Customer Rating:
Summary: EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED (DVD)
Comment: LOVE THIS MOVIE, WE'VE WATCHED IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN. EACH TIME WE SEE IT WE CATCH SOMETHING WE MISSED AND IT "ILLUMINATES" THINGS WE QUESTIONED. MY INLAWS ARE FROM THE UKRAINE AND IT HAS EVOKED A LOT OF CONVERSATIONS ABOUT WHAT THE CHARACTERS HAVE EXPERIENCED AND THE EXPERIENCES MY INLAWS HAD. i ALSO READ THE BOOK. IF YOU HAVEN'T, I RECOMMEND READING IT AFTER THE MOVIE. THE BOOK HAS ANOTHER STORY WITHIN THE STORY AND I THINK IT WOULD HAVE BEEN CONFUSING TO READ IT FIRST. BUT THE BOOK DID HELP ME COME TO SOME POSSIBLE CONCLUSIONS AS TO SOME OF THE EVENTS OF THE MOVIE. A FUNNY, YET EMOTIONAL, THOUGHT PROVOKING MOVIE.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Illuminating
Comment: I love this movie! It's witty as well as sensitive. Something I have always wanted to do was to go to Europe to find the history of my family roots. Everything is Illuminated inspires me even more.
The story of the young "American" played by Elijah Wood who goes to search for his family roots is very touching. He encounters the cultural differences as well as the religious ones. His journey is just that...a journey that reveals not only the truth he is searching for but also the depth of discrimination towards different faiths.
The movie title is also revealed in the story. I recommend this to anyone who is looking for an enjoyable movie to watch for a couple of hours or over and over again.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Everything is Illuminated
Comment: Everything is truly illuminated in this wonderful film about Jonathan Safran Foer, a young Jewish man, played magnificently by Elijah Wood, who, in the process of searching for his roots, transforms the lives of those around him.
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
Based on the critically-acclaimed novel by Jonathan Safran Foer "Everything is Illuminated" tells the story of a young man's quest to find the woman who saved his grandfather in a small Ukrainian town that was wiped off the map by the Nazi invasion. What starts out as a journey to piece together one family's story under absurd circumstances turns into a meaningful journey with a powerful series of revelations -- the importance of remembrance the perilous nature of secrets the legacy of the Holocaust and the meaning of friendship.Running Time: 105 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569593428 Manufacturer No: 59342
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
