{"id":24158,"date":"2013-02-04T20:08:20","date_gmt":"2013-02-05T04:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=24158"},"modified":"2013-02-04T20:22:18","modified_gmt":"2013-02-05T04:22:18","slug":"the-ballad-of-weeping-spring-benny-toraty-2012-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=24158","title":{"rendered":"The Ballad of Weeping Spring (Benny Toraty, 2012): Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Jac<\/a>ob Dekker<\/a>. \u00a0Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2013.<\/p>\n

\"\"It seems the only movies that make it stateside from Israel are political films. \u00a0Films that bring issues to light, and inform the world about what is going in and around Israel. \u00a0The Ballad of Weeping Spring is not one of these films, and that is what makes this film a breathe of fresh air. \u00a0While it does have many faults it’s light-hearted sense of adventure makes it easy for one to see through these.<\/p>\n

The Ballad of Weeping Springs is about a young man trying to grant his father’s dying wish. \u00a0With very little backstory, the son sets out to find his father’s old bandmates to play one last song for him before he passes away. \u00a0Throughout his travels he becomes acquainted with an interesting and distinct cast of characters that agree to help him put on this final\u00a0performance for\u00a0his father. \u00a0As the film continues questions are answered and backstories are explained in hopes to thicken the plot.<\/p>\n

The first thing to note is the music. \u00a0The music is very unique, and it fits the film very well. \u00a0If you go into this film with the mindset that you are about to watch a very long music video chances are you will most-likely enjoy it. \u00a0The comedic and diverse cast of characters add to the atmosphere of the film, but unfortunately the film’s plot falls short. \u00a0Basically the whole film the son is searching for band members to play music for his father. \u00a0At first it is interesting, but it gets old fast.<\/p>\n

The writing was pretty bland as well. \u00a0As soon as the film starts to lose momentum, which was frequently, the writers would throw in some very\u00a0cliqued plot twists that most viewers will see coming from a mile away. \u00a0At one point the band leaves the band frontman, played by Uri Gavriel, behind because they simply thought he wanted out of the band. \u00a0That would have been fine if they made him out to be\u00a0uninterested\u00a0in the band, but he was obviously the most passionate of the lot. \u00a0The entire band leaves him behind without a second thought, and when he finally does catch up with them the characters, Gavriel included, act like it never happened. \u00a0There is some conflict in the film between the band and a traveler they somehow run into at every stop they make, but very little was explained about this man. \u00a0For putting a lot of emphasis on this man, he really did not do much to advance the plot.<\/p>\n

While this sounds like a lot of complaints I would not call The Ballad of Weeping Springs a bad film. \u00a0It does get some things right like the tone, the cinematography, and a great soundtrack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Jacob Dekker. \u00a0Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2013. It seems the only movies that make it stateside from Israel are political films. \u00a0Films that bring issues to light, and inform the world about what is going in and around Israel. \u00a0The Ballad of Weeping Spring is not one of these films, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1913,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,191],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2013"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1913"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}