It is October 6, 1973, and Egypt along with Syria have continued their undeclared war on Israel by launching attacks in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights.

On October 6, 1973, the Egyptian army launched a large-scale offensive against Israeli positions in the Sinai Peninsula which was followed by a second attack by Syria from the Golan Heights in the north.

[4] On April 11, 1974, the prime minister Golda Meir resigned with her cabinet followed suit, including chief of staff Moshe Dayan.

[13] Kevin Thomas, writing in the Los Angeles Times said, Kippur was a "classic war film, at once elegiac and immediate, that takes you smack into the chaos of combat yet is marked by a detached perspective.

"[14] Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly offered a mostly positive review commenting, "Amos Gitai's intense, autobiographically based drama is set during Israel's 1973 Yom Kippur War, but current Middle East tensions add urgency to this stark study in the unglorious matter of factness of battle."

"[8] In The Village Voice, critic J. Hoberman reserved compliment for the lead acting and directing saying, "Gitai's strategy encourages the viewer to ponder the logistics of war—as well as those of filming war."

He noted though, that the "ensemble acting sometimes falters, and due to Gitai's camera placement, it can be difficult to distinguish between the various characters—although Klauzner establishes an indelible identity in a brief moment of downtime when he discusses his childhood in Europe during World War II.

Scott writing in The New York Times came to believe, "The relentless attention to the sheer awfulness of war, which is the film's great strength, is also something of a shortcoming.

Long, numbing scenes of soldiers rushing through the war zone with the wounded and returning for more are accompanied by an overwhelming soundtrack of tanks, helicopters and explosions."

He also reserved praise for director Gitai, saying he "captures a chaotic portrait of the war with no glory, only the confusion, fear, and fatigue of a tour under fire.

of Time Out called the film "impressive" while remarking "Gitai's autobiographically inspired account of the harrowing experiences of a first-aid team in the aftermath of Syria and Egypt's surprise attack on Israel in October 1973 typically features long, sinuous takes to chart the way in which patriotic enthusiasm is steadily eroded and replaced by fatigue and disillusionment.

"[18] In a mixed review, Fred Camper writing for the Chicago Reader felt director "Gitai plunges the viewer into the reality of modern warfare, in which the enemy is often invisible – we never see the Syrians in Kippur – and battle lines are often unclear.

"[19] Jack Mathews writing for the NY Daily News, believed that instead of "heightening our sense of empathy, we become numbed by the repetition" of the film.

"[22] Writer Ella Taylor for LA Weekly viewed Kippur as a "radically different – more nakedly autobiographical, more naturalistic, more forgiving – from Gitai's highly conceptual and stylized body of work, there are clear thematic continuities.

"[23] Left unimpressed though, was critic Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter who wrote that the film was "A patience-trying docudrama almost completely devoid of any trace of narrative structure or even defined characters.

Special features for the DVD include; Letterbox 1.85 screen format, stereo audio in Hebrew with English subtitles, and interactive menus with scene access.