Walk on Water is
an Israeli drama-thriller film released in 2006 and directed by New York-born director
Eytan Fox. The film follows Eyal, a Mossad agent actively involved in
assassination missions. After a successful hit, Eyal comes home to find his
wife dead, having committed suicide. He denies any emotion of trauma or guilt,
putting his mind on work and the next target. His superior, Menachem, attempts
to persuade Eyal to seek therapy, warning him that failure to do so will result
in him being pulled off of later missions. Eyal refuses and Menachem gives him
a new mission regardless. The target is Alfred Himmelman, an old Nazi war
criminal in hiding and near death. Eyal dismisses the job up front as a waste
of time, unable to see the point in going after a man so close to dying anyway.
The strong sense of unwavering Israeli hatred towards the Nazi party and
Germany’s actions during the Second World War is visible in Menachem’s command
that Eyal get Himmelman “before God does.” This particular target is very
personal to Menachem. The plan for tracking down Himmelman is getting close to
his grandchildren. Eyal poses as a tour guide for Axel, Himmelman’s grandson,
and his sister Pia, who lives on an Israeli commune and speaks very little of
the native language. The relationship of Axel and Pia is very close, but the
relationship they have with their parents is much more fragile and as it turns
out, cloaked in secrets. In chauffeuring him, Eyal comes to learn that Axel is
in fact homosexual, which clashes with Eyal’s tough exterior. Over the course
of Eyal’s mission to learn the whereabouts of Himmelman, he ends up befriending
Axel and learning a great deal about the futility of harboring hatred for
people. Eyal undergoes a transformation of self-perception and comes to
question his own life course, threatening the completion of the mission in
exchange for a new understanding of the world around him.
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One of the standout themes of Walk on Water is that of tolerance and open-mindedness. Eyal begins
the film as an instrument for the Mossad, prideful of his murders for the
cause. He shares in his cohort’s hatred for anti-Israeli entities. But his
indifference is shaken at the death of his wife, Iris, by her own hands, after
writing a letter that blames Eyal for killing everything that comes near him.
This event sets off Eyal’s change from a cold killer to a more mindful,
understanding human being. His time spent with Axel gets him to step outside of
his comfort zone and engage in intelligent conversation with someone who also
understands persecution, but in a modern setting. Whereas Israelis remember the
wrath of Hitler’s Germany on the Jewish people, Axel, a German, knows well the hatred
he experiences for being a gay man. Something that Eyal uses in his plea to be
taken off the assignment. However, Axel’s life on the outskirts of mainstream society
has a parallel to Eyal’s isolated Mossad life which serves as a beneficial
purpose. Axel helps Eyal see more than his tunnel vision has allowed. More than
the anger and focused hate his career has forced on him. Near the film’s end
when Eyal fights to defend gay acquaintances of Axel’s in the subway, we see
our main character put into action the now well-cultivated acceptance Axel has
helped him uncover.
Eyal coming to the rescue of the men in drag against what looked
like skinheads showcases another theme that goes hand-in-hand with tolerance:
appreciation for life. Eyal’s work as an assassin for the Mossad has made him
apathetic to the suffering and death he has inflicted along the way. This
shield he has constructed over himself and his emotions is shattered by Iris’
suicide and the damning letter she left behind. The visions of Iris crying cut
with the little boy crying whose father Eyal kills at the film’s beginning
shows the emerging guilt Eyal is finally starting to feel. This realization
that his life has until now only served the purpose of ending others is
amplified by time spent in the company of Axel, a man filled with life. In a
wide-eyed, almost naïve philosophy, Axel spends the better part of the film
drawing out the kindness that Eyal has kept buried. Since we never see Eyal’s
interactions with Iris, we can never know how loving he actually was. The man
we see is cold, concerned only with his work, which involves planned murders.
By the film’s end, Eyal has changed. The pain he’s caused has taken its toll.
Time with Axel has tempered the beast, as if all along a mirror had been held
up to his face; causing him to see just low he’s become as a human. Standing
over Alfred Himmelman, Eyal cannot bring himself to kill him. Breaking down in
Axel’s arms, he cries, “I don’t want to kill anymore.” Life has taken on a new
meaning; a new significance for him. The film ends two years later with Eyal
married to Axel’s sister Pia and they have a son named Tom. Having finally
understood how good, how sacred life is, he creates one.
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I found Walk on Water
to be one of the best films we watched this semester and have placed it in my
personal top three. The dynamic between actors Lior Ashkenazi (Eyal) and Knut
Berger (Axel) was the heart of the film. Both actors gave great performances
depicting two sides of human nature. Lior embodied the fury deep inside us all,
the part detached from sympathy and consideration for the happiness of others
and ourselves. Knut played the part of the innocent and the hopeful, navigating
life with the knowledge that it can be harsh and cruel, but still worth smiling
through. The friendship that develops between their characters is believable,
charming and interesting to watch as we see both men open their eyes more about
people. They experience the kind of life-altering moments that result in a
greater appreciation and understanding of human life. Interestingly, at the big
moment of Alfred Himmelman’s demise, the characters switch roles. Eyal becomes
meek and incapable of bringing death, while the good-natured Axel steps up to
take his grandfather’s life by removing his life support. The film says a lot
about the way we change from our communication with other people. Humans have a
strong capacity to influence one another; to learn from each other. Eyal
learned the value of life from Axel, and that made his character arc especially
entertaining to watch. More than visuals, this film was a character study.
However, location and setting were hugely important in establishing the story.
Setting most of the film in Eyal’s home turf of Israel during his ‘learning
phase,’ and then ending the film on enemy
ground, in Berlin, where he applies his newfound humanity made for an wonderful
finish. Walk on Water is a great film
about letting go of hate and embracing life.
