Line #55 Film/WalkOnWater


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/000231_11_1.jpg]]
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3	''Walk on Water'' (ללכת על המים, ''Lalekhet Al [=HaMayim=]'') is a 2004 {{Israeli\|Media}} film. It is directed by New York-born Israeli director Creator/EytanFox and stars Creator/LiorAshkenazi, Knut Berger, and Caroline Peters. The screenplay was written by Gal Uchovsky. Most of the dialogue takes place in English, although there are important parts in Hebrew and German.
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5	Eyal is a UsefulNotes/{{Mossad}} agent who eliminates enemies of Israel. His wife has recently committed suicide, and he doesn't want to admit that he's suffering of it. His chief Menachem decides that he needs to take on a less challenging assignment: tracking the whereabouts of Alfred Himmelman, an aging Nazi war criminal, and get him "before God does".
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7	In order to find the old man, Eyal poses as a tour guide and befriends Himmelman's adult grandchildren -- Axel, a gay social worker, and Pia, who decided to cut all ties with her family due to their support of her grandfather and went to Israel to work in a kibbutz as atonement for her family's past.
8	----
9	!!Tropes:
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11	* AllGaysArePromiscuous: {{Discussed}} in the scene in the German gay bar.
12	* TheAtoner:
13	** Pia wants to atone for her family's Nazi past by working in an Israeli kibbutz.
14	** Eyal, by the end of the film.
15	* ArgentinaIsNaziland: Himmelman took refuge in Argentina after the war.
16	* BabiesEverAfter: [[spoiler: Eyal and Pia are shown to be happily married with a child two years after the events of the film.]]
17	* BadassIsraeli: Eyal is both a realistic and deconstructed version of the trope.
18	* BatmanColdOpen: The film opens on a "routine" mission for Eyal: stealthily killing someone who's apparently a terrorist.
19	* BlackSpeech: In Eyal's family of German Holocaust survivors, German became this.
20	* BruiserWithASoftCenter: Eyal becomes one following CharacterDevelopment.
21	* CentralTheme: Coming to terms with the past.
22	* CombatPragmatist: Eyal. He uses Krav Maga, which is a combat system which relies on a no-rules 'dirty fighting' approach.
23	* CulturalRebel: The Himmelman siblings. Axel is gay and also a social worker, which is doubly frustrating for his rich and bigoted parents. Pia decided to learn Hebrew and work in Israel after discovering that her parents still kept contact with her NaziGrandpa, and refused to use the checks they sent to her on top of that.
24	* CunningLinguist: Eyal. He speaks Hebrew, English and German.
25	* DaChief: Menachem is Eyal's by-the-book officer who insists that he must go through psychological tests after the death of his wife.
26	* DistantFinale: Two years later, [[spoiler: [[ShiksaGoddess Eyal and Pia are married]] [[BabiesEverAfter with a child]] named Tom]].
27	* DrivenToSuicide: Eyal's wife Iris couldn't handle his ProfessionalKiller life anymore.
28	* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Before her fight with their parents, Pia was clearly the responsible one to Axel's foolish, at least in their parents eyes. After Pia fights with her parents, finds herself an Israeli boyfriend and goes to live in a Kibbutz in Israel - she is demoted.
29	* FollowInMyFootsteps: Axel's father wants his son to join the FamilyBusiness, but Axel is happier working as an educator, and it doesn't help that his father has been unaccepting of his son's sexuality.
30	* GayBarReveal: While it isn't likely that Eyal would have stuck around in any dance bar, when he realizes that he is in a gay bar he seems downright startled and pretty much runs away. And that's a man who can kill with his bare hands.
31	* GayAesop: Not the actual work, but more in-universe, showing the process that Eyal goes through learning to accept homosexuals.
32	* HeCleansUpNicely: Seeing Axel in a suit [[HoYay has this effect on Eyal]]. Earlier in the film he reacts this way to Pia dressing up, as well.
33	* HeartbrokenBadass: Eyal, after the death of his wife.
34	* HidingBehindTheLanguageBarrier: Eyal uses Hebrew to do this several times around Axel, and relates an anecdote about his old schoolmates who, on a student exchange to Germany, played a dark "game" by approaching random passersby who were old enough to have been adults during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and asking them in Hebrew "What were you doing when my family was being burnt?".
35	* HiddenDepths:
36	** Eyal, who seems to be almost unfeeling, but revealed to be a BruiserWithASoftCenter with a FreudianExcuse.
37	** Axel seems to be just a WideEyedIdealist, but he has surprising amounts of rage in him, [[spoiler: which eventually leads him to kill his own grandfather.]]
38	* IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim: What Iris probably thought of Eyal's profession before she committed suicide.
39	* InnocentBystander: The drag queens in the UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} underground.
40	* MaleFrontalNudity: Both Axel and Eyal show this briefly when changing (while they discuss anal sex, no less).
41	* ManlyTears: [[spoiler: Even though he can't cry, Eyal breaks down in remorse in Axel's arms at the end]].
42	* NaziGrandpa: Alfred Himmelman. Menachem's mother was part of a group of Jewish people who were apparently killed under this guy's orders during UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust.
43	* NaziHunter: Eyal is initially reluctant to become one and prefers to let the old Nazi die, but Menachem insists on "punishing him before God does".
44	* PoisonedWeapons: Eyal can kill a man in a matter of seconds with his syringe.
45	* RuleOfSymbolism: Eyal's inability to cry [[spoiler: which mysteriously goes away when he can't kill an old man.]]
46	* SaveTheVillain: [[spoiler: Eyal eventually finds himself unable to kill Alfred Himmelman]]. However, [[spoiler: Axel shows up and turns off his grandfather's oxygen tank]].
47	* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: Axel and Eyal, respectively. The contrast is portrayed as a cultural difference, in particular during the scene at the Dead Sea.
48	--> '''Axel:''' "Is it true Israeli men don't like to talk about their feelings?"
49	--> '''Eyal:''' "I don't know. [[SelfDemonstratingArticle To be honest, I don't like to talk about it]]."
50	* SinsOfOurFathers: Pia's previous Israeli boyfriends broke up with her because of her family's Nazi past.
51	* StepfordSmiler: The mother of Axel and Pia keeps smiling, even though she knows they are under scrutiny.
52	* StraightGay: Axel Himmelman is portrayed as neither CampGay nor with ManlyGay stereotypes. Because of this, Eyal doesn't realize at first that he's gay at all (though Pia says he once identified himself as such to everyone who he'd meet).
53	* SwitchToEnglish: Pia speaks some Hebrew, but her brother doesn't speak a word of it, and despite the fact that Eyal speaks perfect German, he hides this in order to spy on the Himmelmans and so for most of the film, the trio switch to English to communicate. The undercover spying part is the in-universe plot point, which makes perfect sense in the story, but English is still used between Axel and Eyal after the revelation that the latter speaks German - of course, the actual, behind-the-scenes-reason is that ''Lior Ashkenazi's'' real German is anything but perfect.
54	* TitleDrop: When Eyal and Axel arrive at the Sea of Galilea, Axel tries to walk on a partially immersed deadwood branch, then trips in the water.
55	-->'''Eyal:''' Hey Jesus, they lied to you! It's impossible to walk on water!
56	* TwoferTokenMinority: Two ethnic minority LGBTQ persons appear in the film - first Rafik, a gay Palestinian who hooks up with Axel at a bar, and later a black drag queen in Berlin.
57	* UnableToCry: Eyal, due to medical reasons. He has to apply eye drops regularly.
58	* WideEyedIdealist: Axel spends much of the film as the idealist to Eyal's [[TheCynic cynic]], but exposure to the harsh realities of life in conflict-ridden Israel does have an effect on him, and the knowledge of his family's DarkSecret and the presence of his grandfather in his house drive him to [[spoiler: kill the old man]].
59	* WhereEverybodyKnowsYourFlame: The movies features two gay bars, one in Tel Aviv and one in UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}}.

Context Film / WalkOnWater