Kedma

Gitai uses fictionalized characters to dramatize historical reality, and while minimalist in its presentation, the film becomes nearly operatic in its intensity.

The drama makes up in intellectual weight what it sometimes lacks in psychological interest and cinematic realism.

Has the stilted, slightly surreal feel of a stage piece. Sometimes it works, but too often it doesn't.

A largely dull history lesson…stripped of any backgrounding, peopled with archetypes rather than fully-drawn characters, and features self-consciously arty direction that gets in the way of story-telling.

Mesmerizingly bad filmmaking.

But for all its provocation, Kedma is an often dull, incoherent film, and its characters remain frustratingly sketchy

Kedma makes for a clumsy, lugubrious history lesson.