Private

Private, Italian director Saverio Costanzo's stunning human drama, would seem like something out of Kafka if it weren't based on real events and a relatively common fact of contemporary Palestinian life.

The film possesses a quiet but powerful tension.

Perhaps inevitably bleak and grueling, Private is also involving and provocative -- and critical of Israeli treatment of Palestinians in an effectively understated manner.

An emotionally and politically loaded allegory.

Director Saverio Costanzo shrewdly de-emphasizes the political issues, instead charting the subtle shifts in power between the prisoners and their captors.

For all its documentary-style urgency, Private often feels forced.

Israeli soldiers are cast as the killers, while the Palestinians are the hapless bunnies. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is thus reimagined as "Bambi."