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Amos Lassen wrote on 04/03/2011:

“Walk on Water” (Sony Classics), Eytan Fox’s follow up to his phenomenal “Yossi and Jagger” is a politically complex and ambitious film and is a memorable story of guilt, revenge and the connectivity of man. It s profound and multilayered and I found it rewarding.
Eyal, an Israeli secret service agent is heartless and therefore a perfect hit man but it also hinders him from being able to connect with those that are close to him. With the suicide of his wife he goes into a tailspin. He is then given the assignment of playing tour guide to a German brother and sister whose grandfather was a high ranking German officer. Pia, the sister, has come to live in Israel due to her shame of what her grandfather did, and Alex, her brother, is a liberal, easygoing gay male whose open-mindedness bothers the gent. When Eyal travels to Berlin to se Alex the horrible past is revealed of both men is revealed.
“Walk on Water” concerns itself with several major issues, among them politics, sexuality an reconciliation with the past and the wonderful direction of Fox manages to bring all of the themes together.
It has been over 6o years since World War II and the Nazis attempted the extermination of an entire race. The feelings about this mass extermination are still alive in modern Israel where so many of the descendants of those killed by the Nazis live today. The film looks deeply at the uneasy relationship between young Germans today and the Jews who grew up in a culture which still lives in shame and awe of the terror and the later implications of the Holocaust. The Germans who appear in this film were raised in a culture of silent guilt about the atrocities that their grandparents committed while Israelis continue to have a bitter resentment toward the German people. This is the baggage that weighs heavy on Eyal’s mission as a member of Israeli intelligence. He has been assigned to track down and kill Himmelman, a Nazi war criminal who happens to be the grandfather of the two Germans he is assigned to take care of. The Israeli philosophy of capturing former Nazis is to get to them before God does. The loss of his own wife to suicide torments Eyal and influences the way he looks at things. When he meets the young Himmelmans he finds them to be as extroverted as
he, himself, is introverted and homophobic. This difference in demeanors makes for awkward interaction between Eyal and the people he is to care for and he is constantly aware that the two are descendants of Nazis. Making it even harder for him is the fact that he likes both Alex and Pia, Their friendship appears extremely tenuous as eventually Eyal comes to realize that these are actual people and not products of some Satanic construct. As the movie moves forward, Eyal is forced to reveal his true self and even b reach his new relationships with Alex and Pia in order to fulfill his duty. Relationships built on false pretenses and a highly intelligent screenplay with twists and turn all along the way makes this film a stunner. What we get is a study of race relations which us powerful and very moving. Unpredictable and heavy handed, “Walk on Water” is a dramatic thriller that attacks racism, homophobia and prejudice in general. You cannot outguess the film—whenever you think you have everything figured out there is a twist and a turn to take you along another path. The movie does not go where it is expected to go so you are taken on a ride never knowing your destination—even when you arrive there.

JANORM wrote on 07/19/2009:

This is one film that can be best described as one man's roller-coaster ride through LOVE'S total emotional field of dos and don'ts, cans and can'ts, wills and wonts. The audience is subjected to a vast mosaic of emotional love situations as experienced by of all people a MOSSAD assassin. Totally entertaining yet Gothically tragic, this story has its own morality and its own meaning to everyone that sees it. This is a must for your collection. MAN'S SOUL CAN HELD HOSTAGE BY EMOTIONAL LOVE!!! NJMJr!

GEORGE (georgerannie@comcast.net) wrote on 09/12/2005:

I found this movie to be a very moving and profound movie experience. “Walk on Water” tackles some very “heavy” issues—the “gay/straight” issue, the Israeli/ Palestinian issue the German/Jewish issue which are all very intense thought provoking things to think about and to deal with. However, in this marvelous movie no definite answers, to the aforesaid conflicts, are given. The movie just reflects human beings coming together and understanding each other a little more than they did before and ultimately becoming better people just by getting to know another human that might be radically different than they are.

The character Eyal, at the beginning of the movie, starts off as a cold, unsmiling, unfeeling, extremely “butch” “hit man” for the Israeli government. One of his assignments is to infiltrate a German family in order to find out the whereabouts of the German family’s old grandfather who was a murdering Nazi during the Nazi era and who has been hiding out in Argentina since the war. His mission, of course, is to kill him. The old Nazi’s grandchildren are in Israel. The granddaughter is, defiantly, living in a kibbutz (she knows of her grandfather’s Nazi background); the gay grandson comes to visit his sister with the idea of persuading her to return to Germany for their father’s 70th birthday. Eyal, the mercenary poses as a tour guide to Axel the gay grandson. Eyal and Axel become unlikely friends. Their friendship ultimately changes the lives of ALL involved.

It really irritates me that some reviewers on other boards have reduced the blossoming friendship of Eyal (a straight man) and Axel (a gay man) to just merely one of sexual attraction. I failed to see the sexual attraction between the two men. I only saw a life changing friendship between the two men. It might come as a surprise to some in our society that it IS possible for a gay man and a straight man to form a deep, lasting and yes an affectionate friendship that is NOT sexual. I KNOW this from experience. Anyway, the friendship between Axel and Eyal changes them both—Eyal becomes more human and moves beyond a “killing machine”—he even learns to laugh and to realize that friendship can be found in someone that is different than him, a gay man! Axel learns to have more understanding of some very deep issues (i.e., the German/Israeli and Israeli/Palestinian conflicts)

The acting by all involved is superb. I can see why Lior Ashkenazi (Eyal) is a big star in Israel. He is not only easy on the eye but a very dynamic actor. Watch his eyes; they express volumes. You can see him go from an unfeeling and unloving person that is capable of injecting poison into a smiling little boy’s father without blinking to a baby bouncing father with sentimental dreams. This great film wonderfully shows this amazing transformation.

If you are into profound movies that make you think, buy this film.

just a reviewer wrote on 09/10/2005:

((1)) Director Fox and Writer Uchovsky have certainly tackled some huge issues here: the Holocaust, Israel's relations with neighboring countries, and not necessarily least, relations between gays and straights (the latter being about as "mine-field dangerous" as the subject of Israelis connecting with Palestinians). Of course, with over 15 years as apparently loving partners, these two men should have some expertise in at least one of the three issues just mentioned (I'll let you, dear reader, decide which). Not, myself, being in the slightest an expert on the Holocaust or Israeli foreign relations, I believe I'll keep the following comments aimed in the general direction of that third issue. ((2)) There have been tons of conjecture on major movie website Boards as to what was the "real" relationship between Eyal and Axel (and where it might have been heading). Apparently Director Fox has been quoted to the effect that "Walk on Water" is based on a true story of which he'd become aware. That story involved a real-life Mossad agent who had come home one day and found his wife hanging from the ceiling. She'd left a note saying how hard life had become with him, living with a killer who'd turned into someone emotionally closed. The agent cracked on his next assignment, left Mossad and enrolled in university, studying literature and art. There he met a young boy and fell in love with him. Eventually the former agent does meet his lover's sister, falls in love with her, and they begin a family together. ((3)) As a several times viewer of this movie, I've never found much indication that the gay, real-life "near-ending" described by Fox ever made it into this film of his. Nevertheless, perhaps he was leaving a little room for just such speculation when he gave us this film's near-end Berlin bedroom scene between Eyal and Axel. And, when all is said and done, the film does conclude with the two of them back in that Sea of Galilee beach scene, and Eyal's closing it all out with his (what I'll call) "Ode to Axel." ((4)) Lastly though, it does have to be acknowledged that movies with too much of a gay theme are, obviously, hard sells anywhere: US, Europe and Israel, no doubt. Directors and writers have to look out for the old pocketbook....and rightfully so.