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That was an excellent one.

Purely Joyful Movie!

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

I can't add a whole lot to what people have already said apart from the fact that this is FAR from propaganda. It IS told from the perspective of the occupied Palestinians, but in this film, these are a civilised, educated, privileged family, and somewhat of an ideal for Palestinians to look up to, especially the dignified restraint of the father.'Private', because the house was private until the soldiers came to occupy it, and 'Private' because the real conflict, (of which the house in the film is a microcosm), is anything BUT private, with the world constantly looking on and preoccupying itself with the conflict in one way or another... Ironic. Nothing is perfect, sometimes the best thing to do in life is get on with what you have, as you can't tell what will happen... I wish both sides in the conflict would realise this and give it a go for a few decades - they've already tried a few decades of conflict...

I absolutely loved this movie, which I first caught on the Sundance Channel in the U.S. I've watched it so many times I finally ordered the DVD. This film is a richly textured film, with wonderful acting, strong characterizations, and fine dialog. I'm self-described "pro-Israel" and I did not find this movie biased. It has a point of view as it's the story of a Palestinian family whose home is "occupied" by a group of Israeli soldiers. Everythinig is seen and interpreted from this family's point of view, not the soldiers', with the important exception of the scenes where the daughter hides in the armoire to spy on the soldiers and only we, as the audience, are able to understand the dialog because of the sub-titles (as the daughter cannot understand Hebrew).I love the subtle acting by the actors, such as the roll of the eyes of the neighbor after she's been "interrogated" and leaves the house, or the reaction of the commander as he rounds the corner of the stairs thinking he's going to be interrogating some high value target only to be confronted instead with a middle-aged frumpy house frau (the neighbor). The expression on his face, from intensity to bemusement as his underling questions this hapless woman is priceless. And the actor playing the father is fabulous as he's able to subtly convey both a commanding presence and someone who's been humiliated in front of his family and in unsure how to recover his authority. This isn't a perfect film. Considering the importance his character could potentially have, the one son who finds a left-behind grenade and plants a booby trap for the soldiers is underdeveloped. Is he such a narcissist that he can't even realize the terrible impact his potentially deadly actions would have on himself, his family, and the soldiers? Since he barely says anything, we just don't really understand what's motivating him. And what more can be said about the truly awful ending song that is so heavy-handed as to be disruptive to the viewer. But, overall, a wonderful film that gets better with each viewing.

That a film which depicts the reality of so many actually was shown in the US is a huge shift. With a growing desire for many Americans to finally learn about the 40 year illegal occupation of Palestine and the ensuing suffering...this mild film gives a 'peek' of that reality. That ordinary families endure this and worse is not the point, but that so many still fail to comprehend is. I only wish the film got wider distribution and longer theater play time. The viewer experiences increasing tension and angst as there is no sense as to what the next crisis may be or who will be effected. Only the sense of futility and isolation remains. Those with the power continue to arbitrarily allow or end life on the spot whilst those without power can only continue to use reason and intellect to survive. How a people can continue to exist and even succeed academically or emotionally is a testament to the human spirit. This family integrates their parental respect and internal values as too few in the west even comprehend. An excellent cast and exceptional storyline which is rarely if ever seen in the States. Well done!..WELL DONE!

The first half of "Private" is frustrating as a set piece of European intellectualism and inauthenticity strained to establish a logic puzzle mind game, but the second half rises to the level of universal humanity. There have been many movies about the stubborn old idealist who infuriates his family with his implacability ("Man of La Mancha," "The Field," "Straight Story," etc.) but co-writer/debut director Saverio Costanzo sets this one as a barely-believable Shakespeare-quoting, educated, middle class, secular Palestinian holding on to his house and his very large family amidst the volatility of the West Bank territories. Each member of the family represents a type that has some similarity to the family in "Raisin in the Sun" -- the exhausted housewife who just wants her kids to be safe, the beautiful eldest, enscarfed daughter who argues against leaving for a European education to the apathetic sports-mad teen boy radicalized by his conflicts with Israelis to the traumatized little girl and the big-eyed curious, adorable little brother.With much of the film shot in dark as shaky, pseudo-documentary digital video like night vision goggles, the forced comparison to "Diary of Anne Frank" doesn't quite hold up as the family is locked into their living room only at night by occupying Israeli soldiers as it is a principle not survival itself that the father is insisting upon. They seem to have complete daily freedom to shop and go to school (they say "madrassa" on the soundtrack but we see them do math homework not rotely memorize The Koran), but not to host friends. While the film does well build up the tension of this nightly, stressful ritual, that is also true in nonpolitical hostage films from "Petrified Forest," to "Key Largo," "Desperate Hours," and on and on. The Israeli soldiers are as much types as the soldiers in the TV series "Over There." There's the barking sergeant, the sensitive intellectual and the bored joker just doing his job, but with the casual mention that these frustrated reservists are commuting distance from home, as was seen in "Kippur." The film is also unfair in only hinting at what attacks they, let alone their families at their home towns, have endured from Palestinian civilians to make them so aggressive and jumpy.While it is ironic that the Palestinians and the Israelis have to speak broken English to each other to communicate, the larger themes are confused in perception to the audience because it is not clear what the participants do and do not understand as most of the conversations are translated for us in the subtitles. This is important because the second half of the film reaches an intriguing point where each side slowly starts to perceive each other as individuals and not as just "the other." The turning point is when the oldest daughter breaks the rules restricting the family downstairs and spies on the soldiers billeted upstairs. Motivated initially by some kind of revenge fantasy, she is gradually overcome by natural curiosity, and perhaps voyeurism as they are hunky young men, and begins to parse out their relationships from their body language and activities, which she later relates fantastically to her equally curious younger brother. Shot only from her viewpoint, we begin to realize that a narrow sliver is really how each side has been seeing the other all along.The film leaves no doubt that such insights are brief blips in the ongoing struggles between both sides that leave tragedy in the wake of the continued cycle of miscommunications and misperceptions.Oddly, this is the second recent Italian film about terrorism (Good Morning, Night (Buongiorno, notte)) that uses a Pink Floyd-related song too heavy-handedly on the soundtrack (here a cover of "Perfect Sense, Part 1" from Roger Waters's Amused to Death).