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This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

touching. well made. impressive. a story of survive, hope, sacrifice and truth. a bitter story about clash between different worlds, about the sense of words, about self definition and the root of self determination. the story of Schlomo is not different by many others. and that is its basic virtue. not to be an universal story. but to convince about the force of a special form of joy. a film about the rhythm of life. about political options, about the identity, about the fight to discover and to be yourself. Mihaileanu is a great, admirable director for the rare science to transform his films in subtle powerful manifestos. that is the secret. in the case of Live and Become the last scene is the proof.

I found this French / Israeli / Belgian / Italian film in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I read a short description before watching it, and it did sound like something worthwhile of that recommendation. Basically set in 1980 in Ethiopa the black Falashas have Christian beliefs and live in poverty, and every so on transports come into the community and take away people away to Israel, and a young boy, who is renamed Schlomo (Moshe Agazai) is sent by his Mother (Meskie Shibru-Sivan Hadar) to get on it, told to "Go, live, and become". Eventually the boy is adopted into a good family, who have no knowledge he has replaced am Ehtiopian Jewish boy who died, from the beginning he is forced to endure racism and learn the Jewish religion, he remains depressed for some time, until he is able to send a letter to his real mother. Schlomo as a teenager (Moshe Abebe) seems to have become accustomed to the adoptive family, but he still struggles with the Jewish ways, and he finds himself falling in love with Sara (Roni Hadar), but her father is an extreme racist, he tries to gain "real Jewishness" competing in a Bible interpretation competition, but this makes no difference to the father's attitude. Disappointed he decides to himself into the police explaining that he is a Falasha and not Jewish, but he is ignored and his adoptive parents send him to study medicine in France, it is there that he and Sara get married, her family are taken from her, but in the circumstances Schlomo will not reveal his true identity until she becomes pregnant. Sara does find out his true origins, she leaves him not for his deception but for believing that she would not have trusted or loved him anyway, but the adoptive mother helps them reconcile, but Schlomo is given a condition by Sara, he must meet his real mother again, as a doctor he does find the way to return to Ethiopa fugitive camp, in the end Schlomo and his mother do have an emotional reunion. Also starring Yaël Abecassis as Yael Harrari, Roschdy Zem as Yoram Harrari, Sirak M. Sabahat as Schlomo as an adult and Yitzhak Edgar as Qès Amara. I have seen these kind of films before, someone bing forced to go against their beliefs to fit into a new society or family, the racial tension and religion clashes do add to what could have been a predictable story, and the inclusion of hard hitting moments of human poverty is also moving, it is certainly a worthwhile drama film. Good!

Radu Mihaileanu's "Live and become" could be defined as an 'indie crowd-pleaser'. I know it's not the best definition, but think about it: a European movie with a lot of nonprofessional actors, an inspiring title and story…Strong story. Films like this one always make the intelligent viewer suspicious, and with reason. There were many things I though I'd see in "Live and become"; I found them all. The script, by Mihaileanu and Alain-Michel Blanc, constructs its bases from something that has to be veridical because of the way the movie presents it, with admitted seriousness. If it's not, then the director and his writing partner have made us believe the suffering throughout someone's life and the film's most revealing moments from something that never occurred. Schlomo, the film's main character, leaves a village in Ethiopia because his mother obliges him. Soon the 9-year-old, a non-Jew, finds himself in Israel saying a name that's not his (but it's the only one we ever know he has) and admitting to be a part of a religion he didn't grow up knowing: Judaism. When he leaves his mother, she tells him something like: "Live and become, and don't come back until then".The boy obeys, of course, but lives his whole life trying to understand what his mother meant, as he talks to the moon as if it where his mother and writes letters and arguments to defend himself in debates relating them with his personal feelings. In his life in Israel, he lives with adoptive parents Yael (Yael Abecassis) and Yoram (Roschdy Zem), who love him but, although he learns to love them back, he only wants to go back home. One man will help him manage this desire, but I won't tell you who he is because the role he plays in the boy's life and how they meet each other is probably the film's highest point.I don't want to sound disqualifying, but it's hard to sustain a story like the one "Live and become" presents. I suspected that it would center everything on the boy's dilemma, and it did. Everything revolves around the prejudice and consequences of Schlomo's situation; some discussions become predictable and sometimes it seems this is being exploited so much that it leaves the rest undeveloped. The truth is that there's not much more character development in the film than the three- dimensional Schlomo, who is played by three different actors and only one seems to comprehend him (Sirak M. Sabahat), when the boy is no more and we see him in his maturity. When I said "Live and become" was a crowd-pleaser, I meant that it knows the material it's dealing with and the effect it can generate in an audience. It's a big dramatic effect of course, that generally provokes a big smile or a little tear. The experience I had with "Live and become" is very similar to the ones I had with "Whale Rider", from New Zealand, and "The Pursuit of Happiness" from USA; both crowdpleasers. "Whale Rider" relied on Keisha Castle Hughes' presence to generate emotion (and maybe too much on the images), and 'Pursuit' relied on Will Smith's chemistry with his son (and not so much on the images). Here, the actors don't have the sparkle, and Mihaileanu bets it on the music-loud and heartbreaking-and the images. The three films are moving; I said it, but I didn't buy any of their stories. This one could have the most solid general development, a fact that may redeem its poor, crowd-pleasing ending.

I was very lucky to catch this film at the end of its run here in Washington, D.C. I found it absolutely stunning. One of the biggest issues it raised for me (and for the main character, I believe) was, in the face of the kind of devastation faced by Ethiopia in the 1980s, who should be saved, and why? I felt that a lot of Shlomo's anger, at society and at himself, resulted from his guilt at being one of the few survivors, which was compounded by the fact that, technically, he shouldn't have been one of the survivors since he wasn't Jewish. But this raises the larger question: why does a Jewish Ethiopian have a right to survive while a non-Jewish Ethiopian does not -- an issue that in a sense turns on its head the similar question raised by the Holocaust, when being Jewish was a death sentence rather than a basis for survival.The film is beautifully filmed and acted and touches on so many important and often difficult themes -- though generally with a light touch -- that it's hard to know where to begin. Most importantly, unlike most films I see these days, the drama in this film is real. It's too bad it's so hard to get a chance to see this film, but if you do get the chance, take it.