In the war of 1948 hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated. Israelis call it 'The War of Independence. Palestinians call it 'Nakba"'. The film examines one village- Tantura and why "Nakba" is taboo in Israeli society.... (Full plot summary below)
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In the war of 1948 hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated. Israelis call it 'The War of Independence. Palestinians call it 'Nakba"'. The film examines one village- Tantura and why "Nakba" is taboo in Israeli society.
Leave your thoughts about Tantura.
| VarietyOwen GleibermanThe film is a record of what went on during the War of Independence — a much uglier and more brutal story than Israel has ever wanted to acknowledge. The film includes graphic testimony, and it comes from the most authoritative sources possible: those who fought in the war and lived it — the Palestinians, but also the Israeli soldiers themselves. |
| VoxAlissa WilkinsonThe film works on two levels: one is about the massacre; the other is about the psychology employed not only by perpetrators, but by the powerful forces that back them up. |
| The New York TimesBen KenigsbergThe emerging film is not simply a persuasive augmentation of Katz’s argument, but also a disturbing portrait of how very human impulses — passivity, rationalization, social pressures — can shape the writing of history. |
| The PlaylistNed BoothThis sobering movie is a triumph, but it’s also just a hugely compelling story about how power tries to silence all other narratives. |
| The Film StageDan MeccaAesthetically and dramatically, Tantura is a fairly straightforward piece of work, and this is appreciated. We are being presented with the facts as the filmmakers see them. Schwarz and his collaborators acknowledge Katz and the complications of his word, while also letting us hear the admissions from the soldiers themselves. |
| RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzIsraelis call the events of 1948 The War for Independence, while Palestinians call it Nabka, or The Catastrophe. It's hard to imagine how the two could be reconciled, and "Tantura" doesn't try. It has its hands full just trying to establish what happened, and encouraging participants and beneficiaries into accepting what it meant. |
| Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangThe result is both a study in historical amnesia and a kind of epistemological detective story, in which the grim truth is as hard to refute as it is hard to prove. |
| The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerTantura finally attempts to get the record on that incident straight, but as a movie, it serves an even greater purpose by bringing it to a wider public than ever before. |
| Los Angeles TimesCarlos AguilarThough Schwarz’s finished film provides unmissable and infuriating insight, it’s also disappointing that he never mentions the ongoing violence that the Israeli state commits against residents in the current Palestinian territories, including numerous documented human rights violations. |
| IndieWireSiddhant AdlakhaThe film depends too greatly on its sense of academia to unearth its story, and it struggles to fully engage with the explosive topic at hand for its first hour. However, in the final stretch of its 85-minute runtime, this approach proves foundational for chilling revelations and quiet, cinematically self-evident questions about the way we remember history. |
