Brightlyme i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Connianatu How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Claudio Carvalho In the South of Palestine, the idealistic Professor Mohammad (Mohammed Bakri) is a family man that lives with his wife and five children a simple life in an isolated house. His wife Samia (Areen Omari) wants to leave Palestine but her husband refuses to emigrate to another country and become a refugee. One night, Israeli soldiers commanded by the paranoid Commander Ofer (Lior Miller) break in their house and the peaceful Mohammad needs to control his family that wants to react against the Israeli aggression. "Private" is a heartbreaking and dramatic story about a Palestinian that has their home, that is supposed to be the safest and the most sacred place of a family, invaded by Israeli soldiers that threaten and humiliate them. The direction and performances are top-notch and the film gives the sensation of documentary. The abusive relationship of the Israeli soldiers with the Palestinian family is very similar to the Nazis and Jews in World War II, Serbs and Croats in the Yugoslav Wars or American and Iraqis in the recent invasion and happens since the very beginning of mankind history between who is in control and who is controlled by the Power that Be. Sad, but it is the reality. My vote is eight. Title (Brazil): "Violação de Domicílio" ("Home Violation")

salahadeen-587-489482 This is one of the most true, accurate, and realistic movies on the conflict I have ever seen. I have been to Palestine several times in my life, and also know a family who lives in Palestine who actually had this home occupation happen to them in real life. I can say from first hand experience that this film does an incredibly good job with re-recreating the atmosphere life when ones home is occupied by Israeli's soldiers, which believe it or not is a very common thing for many Palestinian families.The acting is brilliant, and I was truly impressed with how simple, yet powerful the film was. For anyone who would like to TRULY understand the Israeli Palestinian conflict, this film is a must see. It is not a two sided situation like the Israeli revisionists like to make it out to be. It is a one sided situation with the Palestinians being the unfortunate victims of a 60 year military occupation. The Israeli government is one of the most oppressive governments ever to exist, and is easily comparable with the Nazi government and their military occupation of France, which was also a one sided situation with the Jews being the unfortunate victims of the horrific atrocities of the Nazi Regime.Please do not listen to the folks who erroneously propagate that Israel is the victim. Such people, even though perhaps well intentioned, are in manifest error and probably never even been to Palestine, let alone live there, and this film demonstrates with pin point accuracy the stress that 95% of Palestinian families will go through.

noralee The first half of "Private" is frustrating as a set piece of European intellectualism and inauthenticity strained to establish a logic puzzle mind game, but the second half rises to the level of universal humanity. There have been many movies about the stubborn old idealist who infuriates his family with his implacability ("Man of La Mancha," "The Field," "Straight Story," etc.) but co-writer/debut director Saverio Costanzo sets this one as a barely-believable Shakespeare-quoting, educated, middle class, secular Palestinian holding on to his house and his very large family amidst the volatility of the West Bank territories. Each member of the family represents a type that has some similarity to the family in "Raisin in the Sun" -- the exhausted housewife who just wants her kids to be safe, the beautiful eldest, enscarfed daughter who argues against leaving for a European education to the apathetic sports-mad teen boy radicalized by his conflicts with Israelis to the traumatized little girl and the big-eyed curious, adorable little brother.With much of the film shot in dark as shaky, pseudo-documentary digital video like night vision goggles, the forced comparison to "Diary of Anne Frank" doesn't quite hold up as the family is locked into their living room only at night by occupying Israeli soldiers as it is a principle not survival itself that the father is insisting upon. They seem to have complete daily freedom to shop and go to school (they say "madrassa" on the soundtrack but we see them do math homework not rotely memorize The Koran), but not to host friends. While the film does well build up the tension of this nightly, stressful ritual, that is also true in nonpolitical hostage films from "Petrified Forest," to "Key Largo," "Desperate Hours," and on and on. The Israeli soldiers are as much types as the soldiers in the TV series "Over There." There's the barking sergeant, the sensitive intellectual and the bored joker just doing his job, but with the casual mention that these frustrated reservists are commuting distance from home, as was seen in "Kippur." The film is also unfair in only hinting at what attacks they, let alone their families at their home towns, have endured from Palestinian civilians to make them so aggressive and jumpy.While it is ironic that the Palestinians and the Israelis have to speak broken English to each other to communicate, the larger themes are confused in perception to the audience because it is not clear what the participants do and do not understand as most of the conversations are translated for us in the subtitles. This is important because the second half of the film reaches an intriguing point where each side slowly starts to perceive each other as individuals and not as just "the other." The turning point is when the oldest daughter breaks the rules restricting the family downstairs and spies on the soldiers billeted upstairs. Motivated initially by some kind of revenge fantasy, she is gradually overcome by natural curiosity, and perhaps voyeurism as they are hunky young men, and begins to parse out their relationships from their body language and activities, which she later relates fantastically to her equally curious younger brother. Shot only from her viewpoint, we begin to realize that a narrow sliver is really how each side has been seeing the other all along.The film leaves no doubt that such insights are brief blips in the ongoing struggles between both sides that leave tragedy in the wake of the continued cycle of miscommunications and misperceptions.Oddly, this is the second recent Italian film about terrorism (Good Morning, Night (Buongiorno, notte)) that uses a Pink Floyd-related song too heavy-handedly on the soundtrack (here a cover of "Perfect Sense, Part 1" from Roger Waters's Amused to Death).

peri90 I found the film Private to be an excellent depiction of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Throughout the film you feel yourself holding your breath, identifying yourself with the tension that exists in the house. The film humanizes the current situation in the middle east. Part of what is excellent about this film, is that this it is acted by both Arab and Israeli actors. One can only imagine themselves on the set of the making of this film. Or sitting in a round circle discussion with the actors.The plot: The father does an excellent job acting his part. You are both upset at and understanding of the father. His choice to stay in his house is probably the best decision, and hardest decision. It requires a very strong person, who can watch their children be scarred but can remind themselves that in the end, the other choice would scar his children even more so. The mother sums it up when she says to her husband, "I would like to be like you, but I am not." The cinematography is excellent, because it is not excellent. The low budget look of the film lends to the reality of the situation. It reminds one that, though the story is "fiction", this story has happened. An excellent, intriguing, thought provoking, film. Everyone plays their part to the fullest.