...is the story of a group of Israeli soldiers who have been sent to guard an outpost (the "Hill 24" of the title) overlooking a strategic valley. The time is 1948, at the end of the "War of Liberation." This four-person unit's job is simple: hold the position during the night, then put up the Israeli flag in the morning so the UN and the combatant's representatives can mark the position as Zionist territory. But before they can reach the hill, there is a long truck ride during which each unloads why they are fighting for Israel. And like "The Canterbury Tales", these stories are the point of the film. The first is about Edward Mulhare's character, an Northern Irish police officer who worked for the British in the Palestinian Mandate. We follow his investigation of a concentration-camp survivor who is in Palestine to kick the British out, and how Mulhare falls in love with the guy's architect student girlfriend. The next story is that of an American Jew who came to the Holy Land as a tourist, then became a Haganah or Irgun fighter in East Jeruselem. He is wounded, loses his willingness to fight in an ad-hoc field hospital, then regains it after getting a pep talk from a rabbi(!) The girl of the outfit (who I think is a Druze) was his nurse, so she doesn't spew her bio. Finally, there is this wiseacre Eastern European Jew who recounts how he ran into an ex-SS concentration-camp officer out in the desert while fighting Arab League soldiers. I cannot reveal what happens to them once the reach Hill 24, but I can say it is very similar to the old Humphry Bogart movie "Sahara."
"Giv'a 24 Eina Ona" really reminds me of Algeria's first film, Gillo Pontecorvo's "The Battle of Algiers," in that both are films of struggle, and in both good foreign actors are used. The American afraid of subtitled films will be relieved that most of "Hill 24" is in English. Certainly it is a propaganda film, but there are worse bits of cinema people can waste their time on. ("Nekromantik," anyone?)
"Giv'a 24 Eina Ona" really reminds me of Algeria's first film, Gillo Pontecorvo's "The Battle of Algiers," in that both are films of struggle, and in both good foreign actors are used. The American afraid of subtitled films will be relieved that most of "Hill 24" is in English. Certainly it is a propaganda film, but there are worse bits of cinema people can waste their time on. ("Nekromantik," anyone?)