The Last Winter

Tel Aviv, autumn, 1973. During a hiatus in the Yom Kippur war, two soldiers' wives (Quinlan and Elian) anxiously awaiting news from the front are thrown together when each identifies the same man as her husband in a blurred film of PoWs. Tracing their relationship from initial hostility to mutual support, Last Winter, filmed in English, is rather blander than its subject matter might lead you to expect. The director, himself a war veteran, carefully skirts controversy, keeping political events strictly as background colour to the human interest angle; and after teasingly suggesting an erotic attraction between the women, has Quinlan seal their bond by 'loaning' the widowed Elian her husband for a night. Still, it's tasteful, workmanlike, and a reminder that the Israeli cinema can produce something else besides Popsicles.