Brightlyme
i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.
Limerculer
A waste of 90 minutes of my life
filippaberry84
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Alistair Olson
After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.
mountainstonePT
This is just a gem of a little film, the story of a young man who is the pride of his village, sent to Jerusalem to seek wisdom. Boy does he get it! It is a thoroughly modern film, one that documents the plight of the country boy to the city in our warped modern world. As opposed to all the horrible sex and violence films of today, this just tells a great story of our times. While a dark tale, it never falls into depression, and instead James' wonderful point of view and the filmmaker's light touch really makes the story come alive. It is well cast, competently shot, a very strong screenplay, unusual for us in North America as it shows the reality of today's Israel through the eyes of a young African Christian, without becoming religiously preachy. Highly recommended and I would also recommend this for teens.
evilmax6
"The Adventures of James in the Holy Land" ("James' Journey to Jerusalem") is one of the best movies made in Israel I ever saw, if not the greatest. You may see this movie from your point of view, but I'll tell you about the movie in the original point of view, a point of view of someone from Israel. The movie tells the sad and comic story of James, who made the long trip from his tribe in Africa to Israel, to see the holy city of Jerusalem. But when James arrives, he discovers he's a victim of a recent problem nowadays in Israel - they believe he's lying and that he just want to illegally live and work in Israel. So James ends in the jail, until Shimi Shabati, son of Sallah Shabati (Who had, in the 50's, his own movie, and would be a main character in the movie), comes and takes him to a shelter in Tel-Aviv where he'll receive a job. I won't tell anymore, but I'll tell that the movie is a wonderful movie where an African who spend his life in a tribe and believe in a better world, would discover the real world, and see with his bare eyes that it wasn't what he was expecting, while having to decide if he prefers the holy city, or the money.No doubt about it - a 10.
tropicaldiver2001
My test for any movie, American or foreign, is that early in the film I begin to care about the characters. I did begin very quickly to care about James, although he seems too-naive to be true. He is held up in accomplishing his goal of arriving in Jersusalem through various situations, but never seems to really take the time or make the effort to get there. After all, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are not that far apart. The movie is an interesting self-criticism of Israeli characteristics.Towards the end James starts to head towards some sort of modest business success in Israel, but the movie seems to stop abruptly. I was disappointed and got no emotional payoff. I wasn't expecting necessarily a happy ending but was unprepared to have it just sort of fizzle out.I can think of better endings, such as the father, Salah continuing to give business advice to James behind his son's back until James achieves real success, or James finally taking time off, arriving in Jersusalem and being disappointed in its commercialization.
Jonathan Fain
This movie is one of the best Israeli movies I have yet to see. It is a simple story with some good actors, and it shows the "values" of Israeli people. The main characters were acted well, yet the rest were pretty the same like most Israeli films, not professional. Camera work is plain and quality is not film, but still a good job done there. Another milestone in Israeli cinema.