Yulia Petracka was her name and she worked cleaning the largest bakery in Jerusalem, Israel. When she gets killed in a suicide bombing in January 2002, the human resources manager is confronted with insensitivity from the press and pressure to do the right thing. Yulia was a foreigner in Israel, a second class citizen who wasn't even Jewish. She was Romanian Christian immigrant. The Human Resources manager without a name like in the book entitled "A Woman in Jerusalem," goes on a journey to discover this woman's life who touched her son, mother, ex-husband, and a co-worker. He makes the long traveling journey to Romania with the journalist photographer and is met by the Israeli consul at the airport. I actually read and loved the book itself. This movie something that I had to have because I found the book to be passionate, thought-provoking, and brilliant. This film does the book's justice even if it made modifications for the screen. The book and the film reminds us that a person makes a difference, a huge difference when we least expect it, dead or alive.

I absolutely loved this film. It unfolds slowly, but the rich mix of sorrow, insight, and comedy makes the journey worth traveling. These are relatable characters - quirky, funny, human, unsure of where to step next. The cinematography perfectly captures the gritty beauty of these landscapes - from Jerusalem to somewhere deep in Eastern Europe. There's a similar feel to the road trip in Little Miss Sunshine: unlikely families pulled together in the pursuit of a goal no one knows is really a wise undertaking in the first place. I review it a 9 instead of 10 because there's a slowness to the pace of the film at the beginning that belies what follows; but it's a film I will want to see again and share with friends.

THE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER is not only the main character of this smart, funny, touching film, it is also the theme: dealing with human responses to illogical situations takes skills few people have mastered. Based on the novel 'A Woman in Jerusalem' by Abraham B. Jehoshua, adapted for the screen by Noah Stollman, and directed with great flair by Eran Riklis, this little story begins as a strange tiny seed and grows into a lesson about the sanctity of the human spirit by films end. A Human Resources Manager (Mark Ivanir is a multifaceted performance) is divorced from his wife (Reymond Amsalem) and only sees his daughter (Roni Koren) on occasion. He has been brought to Jerusalem by The Widow (Gila Almagor) to be the Human Resources Manager to Jerusalem's largest bakery because of his skills, but soon the climate changes: an Romanian ex-employee Yulia has been found dead due to a suicide bombing in Jerusalem, an employee unknown to the HR Manager, and the Press (in the person of 'The Weasel' - Guri Alfi - a looney photographer journalist) decides to make a case of corporate coldness in the situation. The Widow places the possible corporate disaster in the HR Manager's hands, and after much research, it is discovered that the body being kept in the city morgue cannot be buried without a family member 's signature. Yulia's ex-husband (Bogdan E. Stanoevitch) is uncovered but cannot sign for the body's release because the couple was divorced. The HR manager is directed to take the casket to Romania, have Yulia's mother (Irina Petrescu) sign for it, and bury the body there. The men - HR Manager, ex-husband, and Weasel - begrudgingly set off for Romania where they are met by the Israeli Counsel (Rosina Kambus) and her amour (Julian Negulesco) who offer their van and driver (Papil Panduru) to take the body to Yulia's home. At the town where Yulia had lived the group encounters Yulia's son (Noah Silver), a juvenile delinquent whom the father had thrown out of the home. Many conflicts arise before the boy joins the group, takes the body to the boy's grandmother who informs the little groups that Yulia lived and died in Jerusalem and must be returned there to be buried! The van collapses and the HR Manager and Weasel must return the body to Jerusalem in an army tank. It is an ongoing comedy of errors, but in the course of events the HR Manager rediscovers his own soft side of his humanity and learns the importance of human relations within families, towns, governments and people in general. Though the story is potentially a very sad statement about how immigrants are treated by corporations and how victims of suicide bombings can be all but forgotten, but the writing of script keeps the all too human acts of errors and acts of personal forgiveness beautifully balanced. The entire cast is excellent, but Mark Ivanir as the Human Resources Manager makes the film work - a brilliant, understated performance that spreads over the entire range of human responses and reactions. The film is visually stunning, showing us the beauty of Jerusalem, the devastation of Romania, and the incredibly picturesque winter scenes in Romania's very catholic towns. In Hebrew, English and Romanian with English subtitles. It is a little gem of a film. Grady Harp

I don't know how much of what the movie omits is in the novel, but as the movie stands, we have several people each of whose lives has taken a turning-- not always for the worse, but usually-- and the details of that past turning are vague. The full Hebrew title would translate as THE MISSION OF THE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER, and his mission takes him to the boondocks of Eastern Europe to meet the bereaved relatives of a murdered employee. It's a big contrast between familiar surroundings and exotic ones, and the contrast may be lost to viewers for whom the place where the action starts, Israel, is exotic anyway. Another thing lost is the word translated as MANAGER in the title. The word in the Hebrew title doesn't really mean "manager," it means "the appointee responsible." The protagonist (Mark Ivanir carries the movie well in this role) has less authority than he would like, and the plot takes him on a shaggy-dog road trip from one misfortune to another, becoming somewhat more light-hearted and philosophical along the way and showing many moments of altruism. There are some improbabilities and a few minor and unfortunate clichés, such as the fellow who-- like so many characters beset by a crisis in a movie-- had been trying to give up smoking. But the movie has momentum, the minor characters are colorful, the music is enjoyable, the sad and comic sides are well balanced, and I for one was left with a hankering to read the book. In English, by the way, the book is called A WOMAN IN JERUSALEM.