It Is No Dream: The Life Of Theodor Herzl (2012)
The latest production of Moriah Films is It Is No Dream: The Life of Theodor Herzl, exploring the life and times of Theodor Herzl, father of the modern state of Israel. Narrated by Academy Award winner, Sir Ben Kingsley and starring Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz as the voice of Theodor Herzl, the film examines how Herzl, a well known journalist and playwright, an assimilated, Budapest born Jew, horrified by the Dreyfus trial in Paris and the anti-Semitism he saw spreading across Europe, took upon himself the task of attempting to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine against all odds. Over the span of 8 years, Herzl organized and led a worldwide political movement that within 50 years led to the establishment of the state of Israel. The film follows Herzl as he meets with Kings, Prime Ministers, Ambassadors, a Sultan, a Pope and government ministers from Constantinople to St. Petersburg, from Paris to Berlin, from Vienna to Vilna in his quest to build a Jewish nation.
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Reviews
Good start, but then it gets ruined
I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible
The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
A Good documentary with more audio information than video presentation. I learned a lot about Theodor Hertzl, his life and personal issues from his upbringing & childhood to his death at age 44. He was a very interesting man, a journalist and playwright as well as the founder of the Zionist Movement. A problem with this documentary is that there isn't that much of a photo record of his life, (1860-1904) so they reused the same stills multiple times and inserted lots of old stock pictures of important individuals & footage from turn-of-the-century Vienna and Paris, interspersed with more modern stock footage and street frontage shots of important places in Hertzl's life. Again, Lots of great info about Hertzl's life and struggles, but dry and slow if the viewer has a short attention span and needs lots of video to support the audio data.