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The Flat

Play trailer Poster for The Flat Released Oct 19, 2012 1h 37m Documentary Play Trailer Watchlist
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85% Tomatometer 33 Reviews 71% Popcornmeter 2,500+ Ratings
Cleaning out an apartment leads to unexpected discoveries and repressed family emotions coming to the surface.

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The Flat

Critics Reviews

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Joe Williams St. Louis Post-Dispatch Arnon's filmmaking is flaccid, with TV-style interviews and rote reaction shots in place of cinematic imagery and deftly edited surprises. Rated: 2.5/4 Dec 7, 2012 Full Review Wesley Morris Boston Globe There's something touching about the way Goldfinger obeys his moral compass. Rated: 3/4 Nov 29, 2012 Full Review Lisa Schwarzbaum Entertainment Weekly I will salute the deftness and intelligence with which Goldfinger observes the reactions of the living to the revelations of the dead. Rated: A- Nov 28, 2012 Full Review Jordan M. Smith IONCINEMA.com The Flat reminds of the importance of genealogy, something that too often gets lost to the sands of time, and in doing so it also highlights the generational gap that allows the suppression of horrors passed... Feb 9, 2020 Full Review Amy Taubin Artforum One of the most surprising, engaging, and psychologically complex documentaries of recent years. Aug 4, 2015 Full Review Philip Martin Arkansas Democrat-Gazette It's a mesmerizing detective story ...with an oddly uplifting ending that suggests a commonality of the human spirit that supersedes ideology. Rated: 89/100 Apr 27, 2013 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Audience Member Watch this with Labyrinth of Lies. It's amazing what people don't want to know. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/20/23 Full Review Audience Member When his aged grandmother dies, Arnon Goldfinger and his family need to clear her flat of over half a century's worth of collected possessions. What they unearth amongst her papers astonishes and puzzles them and so Goldfinger sets out to solve a mystery that the family never suspected. This brilliant documentary leads a man on a journey of discovery about his family and to some unexpected and difficult interviews with people who knew his grandparents. All families keep secrets and here we see a fascinating account of what happens when these secrets are gradually uncovered. The fact that Arnon Goldfinger manages to do so sensitively and daringly is a great testament to his skill. There is no blame or accusation or sensationalism, just a desire to uncover the truth and find out what really happened to bring his grandparents from Berlin to Tel Aviv. It was particularly moving to see the effect of this gradual unearthing has on Goldfinger's mother who clearly had no real idea of significant aspects of her own past but, after some initial denial, deals with them with grace and strength. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/13/23 Full Review Audience Member Hard to understand this documentary.. not because of the film, but because of the content... Jews that are friends with SS officer? guess it comes down to human nature, and wanting to accept a person as an individual... Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/17/23 Full Review Audience Member A very interesting movie, raising lots of questions about guilt, how to deal with one's family's history, and how to understand one's family within history. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/14/23 Full Review walter m A lot of families have skeletons in their closets. For Arnon Goldfinger(?!?), after his grandmother dies, he finds quite a few creepy looking mink stoles in her closet in her apartment in Israel. On a more metaphorical level, he discovers a friendship his grandparents had with a senior SS officer not only before World War II, but after. To be honest, that's not as weird as it sounds. That's for the simple reason that emigrants tend to identify more with the country they came from, then the one they move to, as his grandparents continued to speak German after they arrived in Israel, never learning to speak Hebrew.(As he recalled in his autobiography, Kirk Douglas remembers hearing German songs when he was filming on location in Israel which made him very, very angry.) At least, Arnon is in the right neighborhood when he talks about generational differences, even as he cannot truly overcome the home movie aesthetics of his documentary "The Flat." Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member An Israeli independent documentary, that examine a personal relationship between the director, and his revelations about his dead grandparents. Tries to play out as a puzzle, but releases the big picture prematurely. Occasionally touching, with its highly personal creation, and touchy - but delicately handled- subject matter. The director does a great job as an observer, never letting emotion overtake the film. 2.5 stars + Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/12/23 Full Review Read all reviews
The Flat

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Movie Info

Synopsis Cleaning out an apartment leads to unexpected discoveries and repressed family emotions coming to the surface.
Director
Arnon Goldfinger
Producer
Arnon Goldfinger, Thomas Kufus
Screenwriter
Arnon Goldfinger
Distributor
IFC Films
Genre
Documentary
Original Language
Hebrew
Release Date (Theaters)
Oct 19, 2012, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Jan 1, 2017
Box Office (Gross USA)
$467.0K
Runtime
1h 37m
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