Past Life

Despite some cumbersome moments, the film delivers a to-the-point message about how the sins of the parents can be visited on the children.

This is a striking and thought-provoking picture.

Uneven but ultimately effective, convincing in mood and emotion despite its melodramatic plotting, Avi Nesher's Past Life is straight-ahead filmmaking heightened by a connection to a pervasive Israeli reality not often found on film.

Its improbable story gives breath to the burden of fate on those living with a past unreconciled.

Past Life does add up to more than the sum of its heavy-handed miscalculations.

The narrative is tightly written, fast-paced and delivered with a scorching, emotional intensity by the actors. The timeline – which moves from the dank cellars of wartime Poland, to concert halls in 1970s Berlin and Sephi’s staid music academy in Jerusalem, is smoothly interwoven. Still, the drama seems overwrought at times, even cliché.

Past Life is a family melodrama in the guise of a murder mystery. Strong performances and the shadow of the Holocaust lend the story poignancy.