LIVE AND BECOME

LIVE AND BECOME - 2005

RATED - NR but probably PG-13 for some language and violence.

RATINGS - 7 Amazon (4.5/5), 2,477 Netflix (4/5), 2,130 IMDB (8/10).

AWARDS - 9 wins and 6 nominations at numerous film festivals.

THEMES - Relationships, spirituality, justice.

STORY - This is the story of Schlomo (Solomon), a 9 year old Ethiopian young boy whose Christian mother disguises him as an Ethiopian Jew to take the place of a Jewish boy his age who has just died and whose mother is being airlifted out of a Sudan refugee camp in 1984 as part of a rescue mission operated by the Israeli secret service to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel. His mother's parting words as he very reluctantly leaves are 'go, live and become'. He does go and he does live (his 'new' mother dies shortly after arriving in Israel) and the film is about becoming. He is adopted by a secular Jewish family. Becoming is hard enough growing up under normal circumstances. What if you must keep the secret that you are not Jewish and should never have been admitted to the country, learn to live in family where you don't fit in easily, adapt to a culture that is foreign and unfriendly to blacks and experience all the many adolescent challenges of hormones, loneliness, and a great ache for your homeland and birth mother? How does one cope with all these challenges? The three actors that play the various stages of Schlomo's life do an outstanding job. There are many levels which hit your emotions as you watch this. You want to him to survive and mature but it's so difficult, the odds are not good and you know he most likely would have been dead had he stayed in Sudan. Somehow he must persevere and overcome and 'become'. A heart-breaking and uplifting story of the human spirit and the will to live and become. Lu G. for Lu's Reviews. 05/16/2009.

LINKS - AMAZON, IMDB.