Upheaval: The Journey of Menachem Begin Movie Review
By
Abramorama
Director: Jonathan Gruber
Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 5/6/21
Opens: June 7, 2021 in theaters. June 9, 2021 streaming
Bibi Netanyahu, who goes unmentioned in “Upheaval,” has been in office since 2009, so many of you have not known any Israeli leaders before him. Jonathan Gruber, who is considered by some an ideal documentarian in that he has the knack to establish trust with his subjects, now presents what he considers a nuanced portrait of one of that country’s most successful and controversial prime ministers. Menachem Begin, whose every moment in life (if you believe the plaudits that have rained down on Begin,) has thought only about the Jewish people from the time he was arrested by the Soviet Union in 1940 for the “crime” of Zionism and sent to the gulag as an “agent of British Imperialism.” This would be a charge that the Soviets would have been difficult to make credible given that Be
If “Upheaval: The Journey of Menachem Begin” was a Netflix-commissioned documentary, we’d be subjected to six one-hour episodes with countless repetition, speculation and other means of filler.
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