Under the Domim Tree

Excellent story in seeing what life was like in early Israel, 1950s. Seemed very true to life in the personalities and the issues of the featured characters.

Amazing story of how a bunch of young teenagers cope with loss of parents, moving to a new country and growth pains.Beautifully explores the emotional side of living in a world full of conflict, with beauty and horror close to each other in the form of holocaust memories and the new beginning in the land of Israel.Greatly recommended product! Some of these DVDs seem to have minor defects, meaning you should probably rip the DVD in order to ensure being able to view it in the future.

"Under the Domim Tree" is the sequel to "The Summer of Aviya", both of which are based on the early life of Gila Almagor. This is one of the few occasions in which I actually liked the sequel better than the first.The performances by the teenage actors and actresses are excellent, and the film shows a realistic picture of their lives post-Holocaust.I have only one major complaint about this movie, and it is that the background of Aviya's mother, Henya (who is portrayed by Almagor herself), is changed. In "The Summer of Aviya", it is stated that her husband - Aviya's father - died in the woods of Poland in 1941 and that she was imprisoned in the concentration camps (she is shown to have a string of numbers tattooed on her wrist). In "Under the Domim Tree", Henya came to Israel before the war and was never in the camps. All of her relatives were killed, though, and she insists that she was "there", which Aviya says is "all in her head". Aviya's father died in 1939, and she is able to visit his grave in Israel.The second version is more similar to Gila Almagor's background, but I wish the producers of this film had been consistent and had not changed the details so drastically.Highly recommended film.

This is a great movie, even athough the subtitling and DVD transfer is low-par.Not to make the story redundant, it is about a Israeli kibbutz in the early-1950s that is full of (mostly) East European orphaned children who were sent away by their parents at the begining of the Hitler years (even afterwards) and brought to Israel to escape the anti-Semitism and violence of Europe. -- Think: Kindertransport, which was the UK. -- Here, the trauma of not having parents, or being brought up in the forest, or being "adopted" by those parents who lost their children, or having parents who believe they are first-hand victims runs the movie. It is fantastic, and very different to the Holocaust movies that deal directly with death camps, concentration camps, Europe, or Nazis/anti-Semites. It's about children coming of age and coming to terms with trauma, memory, and the inability to change the past.For a film made in the mid-1990s, the actors in this movie are EXTREMELY BELIEVABLE! The acting is so good, that one would believe that the film was made in the early 1950s! The gradual unravelling of each of the main characters' lives was just so well written that I was engrossed the entire length of the movie. Not only do you have a type of teenage love/jealousy story(s), but to intermesh that narrative(s) with the story of post-Holocaust memory is near-genius!The movie would be a great double feature with a little-known movie from Poland called "Our Children" (1948), which deals with children (some younger) at a Lodz (Poland)-area orphanage. I would also include Film Movement's "Mother of Mine" (2005), about a Finnish boy (not Jewish) sent to Sweden during the war.Now the 2 downsides to the DVD: 1) The subtitles. Boy, are they really bad. The grammar is terrible, and the spelling is often wrong. Although they are the black-outlined letters (so not to meld with light backgrounds), lines are often incomprehensible; 2) The visual quality of the transfer is not that great. SISU Home Entertainment is the distributor, but the film is so good, it needs some company like Film Movement or First Run Features to do it justice. The movie just looks a bit out of focus.There aren't any really mentionable "Extras" on the DVD (I would love to hear a director's commentary, or even some from the actors and actresses, because it is a great movie).5 of 5 Amazon stars, even with the problems.

This is the next chapter in Gila Almagor's coming-of-age autobiography, begun in her film, THE SUMMER OF AVIYA. UNDER THE DOMIM TREE (or crab apple tree) continues the story five years later, in the mid-1950s, in Israel. Aviya, now 15, lives in a youth village for war orphans and teenagers from troubled homes, where she and her new friends stand in as family for one another. Aviya searches for clues to the identity of her deceased father, endures the unpredictability of her emotionally unstable mother, Henya (played by Gila Almagor herself) and is pursued by Polish-born fellow teenager, Jurek, who desperately tries to win her heart. By day Aviya and her friends laugh, play and study like other teens; by night memories of their unspeakable losses return. They find refuge together under the domim (crabapple) tree, where the story finds its surprising and exhilarating climax. Filmed in a Zionism-realism style.

Perfectly cast and beautifully acted. A moving story of young holocaust survivors growing to maturity.