applecohen This movie will inspire you. It is a well made movie about the 1948 Israeli war, and the difference that each individual can make to an entire country's destiny.I do not like war movies - but this is a movie about survival and ingenuity. There is no drama in this film. It is about people who made a difference. It lets you understand how the nation of Israel came to being - without any help from the entire world.It is a war movie, but not about guns and planes - it is about people. There is humour in the movie and there is gravity. You may not like Israeli people - but you will understand why they were made tough, and have to stay tough. Hats off to Nancy Spielberg for documenting a vital part of history that would have simply been forgotten. Highly recommended.

sdavid-41660 Above and Beyond is a most moving documentary, telling the true story of how US (and other foreign) volunteers, and Israelis, used unimaginable courage and ingenuity to build the foundation of the Israeli Air Force, and how against all odds they won the Arab war of 1948 to drive the Jews into the sea and eliminate the new State of Israel. With stunning visuals, the film makes the point that when the Arabs were tired of fighting they could simply go home, but the Jews had no such choice because they were fighting *for* their home. Impossibly outnumbered and out-gunned, the Jews knew that if they didn't win the war being waged against them by five invading Arab armies, they would be slaughtered in another Holocaust.I defy anyone to watch this film with a dry eye. Dani Shapira, a young Israeli pilot, receives his wings after the war, as he emotionally says: "In the Israeli Air Force. In my air force. In my country." Leon Frankel, an American Jew who'd fought in the second world war, says with equal emotion: "We have a great word in Yiddish, that's 'bashert.' It's fated. It's meant to be. Maybe God spared us in World War II so that we could come to Israel and help the remnants of our people survive . . . I knew then and there that was the reason that I came."Above and Beyond is available on Netflix.

Johan Dondokambey The story's background surely contained a big promise waiting to be taken into the big screen. Volunteering foreign pilots with relatively low experience smuggling their way out risking their own citizenship and/or jail time, to help a newborn state with nothing to count as an Air Force, this looks interesting enough, particularly as we see the outcome of the war which Israel won against five Arab states invading from all sides. The thing is that this movie lacks is that it relied too heavily on the interviews and not giving itself more weight on the dramatization. Maybe the stock of archival footage or photographs will be very hard to find, but at least it can emphasize on reenactments. There's just to many moments when the movie would literally freeze as it shows photographs for a moment just too long with inadequate background sounds or sorts.

Red-125 Above and Beyond (2014) is a documentary film directed by Roberta Grossman. It tells the story of a group of young American WWII veterans who brought planes and their combat skills to Israel in 1948, during the Israeli War of Independence.I thought this was a wonderful film for what it was--a documentary about ordinary people who risked their lives to fight for a cause in which they believed. In 1948, Israel didn't have an air force. By a combination of boldness, determination, and ingenuity, these young men managed to bring the planes to Israel, and use them in the war.The film has been criticized for not putting the efforts of these men into a historical context, not talking about the justice--or injustice--of the 1948 war, and not pointing out the long-term consequences of Israel winning the war. All of those criticisms are accurate, but I believe they aren't relevant.Director Grossman and producer Nancy Spielberg weren't making a documentary series about the 1948 war. They were making a documentary about a particular, specific aspect of the war. These U.S. volunteers survived WWII, and yet they were willing to go back into combat to fight as volunteers for Israel. As far as I could tell, none of them were profoundly philosophical types of men. They did what they thought was right, based on their own Jewishness, their belief in the Israeli cause, and large amounts of testosterone. (As one of them tells the interviewer.)The survivors are old men now. This documentary had to been made quickly, because, in a few years, it would have been too late to get first-hand interviews with the pilots involved. Now, their stories are recorded forever. I enjoyed this movie, which was shown in Rochester's Dryden Theatre as the opening night film of the superb Rochester International Jewish Film Festival. My compliments to the RIJFF for choosing this movie, and for inviting producer Nancy Spielberg to the event. Ms. Spielberg didn't so much speak about the movie itself, but rather about the difficulties of getting it produced. Yes, it helped that she was Steven Spielberg's sister, but that alone would not have been sufficient to get this movie completed. It took talent and determination, and that's what she had.I doubt that this film will go into general distribution, so you'll have to see it at a film festival to view it on a large screen. The good news is that it will work very well on a small screen. I recommend it.