Blood and Tears

Despite an iMovie-ish cheapness that makes room for needlessly outré optical effects and a perplexing disco score, Isidore Rosmarin’s quick history of the Israeli-Palestinian war offers a generally enlightening summary for the ill-informed high-schooler in all of us. Blood and Tears exhibits an unsubtle tilt toward the two-states solution, but it also brings the conflict down to street level: Its interviews with scholars and politicians are admirable in depth and scope, but the testimonials by students, ex-soldiers and citizens on both sides lift the doc above sketchy network newscast didacticism.