Swimming with, while photographing, polar bears in Nir & Menkin's PICTURE OF HIS LIFE

The title of this new documentary, PICTURE OF HIS LIFE, serves a dual purpose. It does indeed offer a (rather limited) picture of the life of famous wildlife photographer Amos Nachoum at the same time that Mr. Nachoum is desperately trying to take a photograph that will become the most important that he has produced because no one has ever managed it before. That would be a shot taken while swimming in the water along with a polar bear.

As written, directed and produced by Yonathan Nir and Dani Menkin (shown above, with Mr Nir on the right), the film begins with some interesting information about polar bears that sets the scene for pretty much why the film is being made and what it, along with Mr. Nachoum (shown below), wants to accomplish.  The photographing of the polar bears while swimming would seem even more difficult these days, as climate change is greatly limiting the diet of these major carnivores and thus making it even more dangerous to be near them.

TrustMovies has enjoyed a couple of Mr. Menkin's earlier films (Dolphin Boy -- co-directed with Nir -- and On the Map) a great deal, but one of the things he appreciate least in a movie is undue padding. Picture of His Life is so full of this that what just might make a 30-minute short has been unconscionably stretched to 75 minutes (with nearly ten of these used for opening and ending credits!)

Even the information, interviews and photos we're given about Nachoum's earlier life and wartime experiences are repetitive, while some of the dialog we hear could hardly be more obvious and stale: "I think, when you go underwater and you're attacked by animal, this affects you." Duh.

The psychology is maybe a little cheapjack, as well: Regarding that polar bear, "I think Amos sees his dad in it," someone notes along the way.  Amos is indeed an impressive guy -- there's no getting around that -- and so is his work, which we see something of here. But since there seems not all that much to be said, they simply say it over and over again. (After hearing that Amos does not like to talk about his wartime experience, we also get, "What happened to Amos in the army is a mystery to me.")

Even the interviews with the "experts" include a little too much blather, although the visuals presented -- of Amos shooting a shark, crocodile, anaconda, leopard seal and more -- are certainly impressive. But the faux suspense built up around the question of whether our guy will be able to get that polar bear shot borders on embarrassing.

The final sequence of the mom and her two cubs in the water, however, may just be worth all your time. It's lovely and amazing. From Oded Horowitz/Panorama Films, in English, Hebrew and Inuktitut, Picture of His Life opens in virtual cinemas in New York City, Los Angeles and elsewhere this Friday, June 19. Click here for information on how to procure a viewing.

ON THE MAP: Dani Menkin's ode to world basketball and the surprising '77 Israeli team

I suspect you will have to be neither a huge basketball fan nor a staunch lover of Israel to still be amazed and moved by the new documentary, ON THE MAP. As written and directed by Dani Menkin (who gave us the wonderful Dolphin Boy, as well as the more recent and not-so-hot narrative film, Is That You?), this sprightly, enthusiastic movie introduces us to a certain Maccabi team from Tel Aviv that made sports and Israeli history back in 1977 by putting Israel, as its captain tell us, "On the map--not just in sports but in everything!"

Mr. Menkin, shown at right, is clearly besotted with love for this team, and he manages to share that with his audience in a way that is exciting, refreshing, and even sometimes heart-stopping. It helps, of course, that the story here is top-of-the-line: a come-from-behind, success-despite-all-odds tale of hard work plus talent that pays off bigtime. And Menkin tells it supremely well, using a smart combination of history, culture, some first-class interviews, and archival footage of the players and their games that brings all this to fine, immediate life.

We see the players then (above) and now (below), and we hear from most of them, too. One of them, Jim Boatwright, is now dead, but his ex-wife makes a fine substitute -- funny, appealing and moving, as she tells us of those days and times and what it all meant to her husband.

The captain of the team -- its star player and the man who most helped bring these players all together -- was Tal Brody (below), whom we see in action on and off the court. We also hear from Brody's friend and co-player (some decades back), Bill Walton, who clearly is still moved and amazed by what these Maccabis did. Hearing Walton talk about all this is one of the documentary's highlights.

We learn how history -- from the creation of Israel to its various wars to the 1972 Munich Olympics -- played into the importance of what happened in 1977. We also meet the one black player on the team, Aulcie Perry (below, center), and learn how a plate full of cakes determined his fate with the team, and how and why he later converted to Judaism.

We're there as Moshe Dayan (above, right) congratulates the team, as well as when Prime Minister Rabin resigns from office on the very day of one of the team's most important games. The anecdotes here are well-chosen, pointed and entertaining -- adding up to a first-class documentary that will have you on the edge of your seat, cheering, holding your breath, and finally maybe shedding a tear or two.

From Hey Jude Productions and running just 85 minutes, On The Map opens in Los Angeles this coming Friday, November 25, at Laemmle's Royal and in New York City on December 9 at the Cinema Village. Click here, then click on SCREENINGS, to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters. There will be personal appearances in Los Angeles and perhaps elsewhere, too. Check the theaters' listings for dates and times.

So adorable you could puke: Dani Menkin's Israeli/American road movie, IS THAT YOU?

Having been a big fan of Israeli documentary filmmaker Dani Menkin's Dolphin Boy (released here in 2012), TrustMovies was primed to see his first foray into narrative filmmaking, IS THAT YOU? (which has been subtitled The Road Not Taken). Post-viewing, I can now say that it has been a long, long time since I've sat through a movie that so set my teeth on edge. By the time it was over, I was surprised not to have ground those little white chiclets down to gum level, even as the milk in my refrigerator curdled. I guess I was simply unprepared for all the cutesy-pie, oddball characters and wring-your-tear-ducts sentimentality that this movie accrues.

Now, I admit that there will be many folk out there in audience-land who will love this kind of film. And I am somewhat surprised that it rubbed me so fiercely the wrong way. But it did, and here's why. From the outset, Mr. Menkin, shown at right, would seem to be attempting some kind of would-be Cassavetes number, as our hero, played by the oft-seen and usually good Israeli actor, Alon Aboutboul, below, arrives in the USA to visit his estranged brother. From the outset it is clear that these two are oil and water, with Mr. Aboutboul, who was recently seen as the villain in London Has Fallen, playing one of those super-sensitive/ super-sexy older men, while his bro is one of those uber-crass Israelis by way of the USA.

Yes, any subtlety goes almost immediately MIA here. The plot has to do with our hero tracking down an early love-of-his-life, which sets him off on a road trip in which he meets character after character who are just so oddball and cute that you cannot believe for a minute that any of them could ever exist. I suppose that maybe one of them might, but sticking the entire lot into a single movie proves a big mistake.

The first of these (if you don't count those two brothers) is a man who now lives in the house where the former girlfriend once lived. So of course this guy immediately invites our hero in to show him a series of photos on his stairs that offers up a message/moral. (So many messages/morals are offered up in the course of this film that you'll be ready to suggest, as one famous movie mogul once advised, that the filmmaker ought use Western Union -- or, these days, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat or whatever else is the latest in social media.)

But, no: The filmmaker just keeps piling the messages on, mostly via a pretty young woman filmmaker whom our hero meets early on and sticks with for nearly the rest of the movie. As played by Naruna Kaplan de Macedo (at left, above and below), the performance is believable only to the extent that the actress can circumvent the ridiculous character the filmmaker has conceived.

So on we go through one new cutesy introduction after another -- commitment-phobic single guys, kindly married lesbians, opera-singing policemen (certainly the dumbest thing in the film), and so forth. Note to story-tellers: It's fine to have your searched-for party move to a different location, once or even twice. But three or four times within the same film? No thank you.

But I'm off-message. As we learn from yet another fellow we meet: "If you love somebody and they love you, don't let 'em get away."  Duh. If you want to feel manipulated within an inch of your life, this is the movie for you. It almost (but not quite) makes me want to re-think Dolphin Boy. Running a thankfully brief 81 minutes, Is That You? opens today, Friday, August 26, in New York City at the Cinema Village, and is expected to open in the Los Angeles area sometime in September. I would also imagine it to be a shoo-in for a few theaters down here in Southern Florida, especially in Boca Raton.

Dani Menkin's and Yonatan Nir's DOLPHIN BOY is all about healing -- on several levels

DOLPHIN BOY -- the new movie opening this week by Israeli filmmakers Dani Menkin  and Yonatan Nir -- is such a cheapo, hand-held, do-it-by-your-bootstraps kind of documentary that you almost start fidgeting within the first minute or two of screen time. But because those minutes include the subject at hand, a 17-year-old young fellow named Morad, who when we meet him, below, has been traumatized by a physical beating almost unto death, we stay focused.

This beating came via another young man (and his friends) who had found what he deemed an inappropriate text on his sister's cell phone and decided that something untoward had been going on. It had not, but Morad was almost killed nonetheless. When we meet him, he has recovered physically but not mentally nor emotionally. He's unreachable.

Menkin (at left) and Nir (below, right) go out of their way to show us how Morad's doctors are flummoxed by their inability to breakthrough to the boy. And so, in a kind of last resort, because they have heard that "dolphin therapy" can sometimes reach the unreachable, off Morad goes, with his family's blessing, to an area by the sea in which dolphins are kept in what seem to be as ideal conditions as possible, without being exactly "free."

Fortunately Morad comes from what appears to be a well-to-do Muslim family. His father, when the movie opens, has already sold much of his property to pay for his son's rehabilitation.

The dolphins, with their seemingly innate kindness, do their job and improvement comes, if slowly. We watch and marvel as, bit by bit, the boy begins connecting with the world again. At around the six-month period, we hear about (but do not see) the reunion with his mother, which, as described, is something else. Here, the primal becomes physical.

Eventually we visit the courthouse with the family and see the criminals. It's shocking, after all the peace and serenity we've been experiencing, to see the stupidity, anger and inhumanity of the attackers. Then it's back to the dolphin base. Interestingly, as much good as the dolphins do, the movie does not concentrate on them. Rather, it's Morad and those around him that gain our keenest attention.

Dad -- above, praying -- is ever-present and loving; mom, too. Morad even becomes close with one of the young female workers (shown below) at the base, and a relationship develops. Without pushing the idea, the movie begins to mirror life and its complexi-ties: relationships, coming to terms with the past and with family.

We learn more about Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, too, and how, as Morad's doctor explains, it makes you acutely aware of what violence can do to the human body and mind. Even as Morad grows more articulate and "normal," coming to terms with any thoughts of that traumatic time seems out of the question. Yet that, finally, must be the goal.

To that end everything from hypnotism to a startling new device to physically make the trauma symptoms cool down are used to help Morad. I don't know that this movie ever actually uses the term itself, but Dolphin Boy is all about healing. Healing Morad, healing the past, and -- as Morad's family are Muslims and the film takes place in Israel under the helm of Israeli filmmakers, maybe even healing the Arab/Jew conundrum.

Dolphin Boy is a lovely movie. And if those dolphins, as important as they are, finally seem the least of it, Morad himself is a fellow you're unlikely to forget. The film opens this Friday here in New York City at the Quad Cinema. I don't know of any other theatrical playdates, but surely we'll see the movie come to DVD, VOD and/or cable/streaming eventually.