January 11, 2008

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 9

eveningsout

Israeli-Palestinian love story avoids easy sentiment

by Anthony Glassman

Sometimes a film hits home, strikes a chord. Every once in a while, you sit there, watching a movie, laughing one minute and sobbing the next.

Crying makes it quite difficult to read subtitles, by the way, which is just about the only problem with The Bubble, the latest film by gay Israeli writer-director Eytan Fox.

Born in New York and raised in Jerusalem, Fox first achieved international fame with Yossi and Jagger, about the relationship between two men in the Israeli Defense Force. He followed it up with Walk on Water, the highest-grossing film in Israeli history.

His first feature, Song of the Siren, was a relatively light-hearted comedy, followed by the two serious features touching on hotbutton issues like the Holocaust or the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

In The Bubble, Fox combines the early comedy with the later drama, creating a film about three roommates living in the chic Sheinkin Street area of Tel Aviv.

There's Noam (Ohad Knoller, who portrayed Yossi in Yossi and Jagger), who just returned from a month in reserve military duty, manning a checkpoint out of the West Bank. At the end of his tour of duty, a pregnant young Palestinian woman goes into labor. Noam has trained as a medic, so he comes to her aid while waiting for an ambulance. Unfortunately, it's a breech birth, and the baby is stillborn.

After returning home to his roommates Lulu (Daniela Wircer) and Yali (Alon

STRAND RELEASING

Alon Freidmann, Ohad Knoller and Daniela Wircer in The Bubble.

Friedmann), there is a knock on the door: Noam had dropped his ID, and Ashraf (Yousef "Joe" Sweid), a young Palestinian who was also waiting at the checkpoint, returns it to him.

And then he gives it to him on the roof of Noam's apartment building.

Israel may have its own problems with homosexuality, at least among the more Orthodox Jewish residents. But in Palestine, being gay can be a death sentence. Ashraf's sister is getting married, and her fiancé, Jihad, keeps trying to hook Ashraf up with his cousin.

Without permits, Ashraf cannot stay for

ong in Tel Aviv; he cannot work. Luckily, he restaurant Yali manages is looking for a new waiter, and Ashraf speaks Hebrew without an accent, so they give him a Hebrew name and send him to work so he can stay with Noam.

Meanwhile, Yali is dating another person who put in an application at the restaurant: Golan, a jingoistic, gung-ho gameplayer. He's hot, he's an idiot, and he calls out for his mother during sex.

Lulu, however, is having horrible luck with men. After finally sleeping with her boyfriend Sharon (pronounced Shah-roan like former Israeli prime minister Ariel

Sharon), he justifies her tears by avoiding her for the next few days.

While seething over his abandonment she doesn't even notice that Shaul, one o the organizers of the "Rave for Peace" tha the roommates are helping to put together is pining for her.

When Ashraf's cover is accidentally blown, he runs back to Nablus, just in time for his sister's wedding.

Noam and Lulu, however, aren't going to let him disappear without a fight, so they masquerade as French television journal ists and go to his house, ostensibly to film the wedding.

When Jihad catches sight of Noam and Ashraf kissing, however, he blackmails his future brother-in-law into trying to "play i straight," setting in motion a climax tha illustrates both the futility of the Israeli. Palestinian conflict and the despair ove how far peace really is.

Fox, who co-wrote the film with his part. ner Gal Uchovsky, steers away from the easy "love conquers all" sentiment into which such films typically devolve. The ending is at once bleak and depressing, yet also some how uplifting and hopeful.

The Bubble is playing at the Cleveland Institute of Arts Cinematheque on Thursday and Friday, January 17 and 18. Tickets are $8. $5 for members, CIA students and staff. The Cinematheque is located at 11141 East Blvd, in University Circle. For more information, call 216-421-7450 or go to their website, www.cia.edu/cinematheque.

The film will also be available on DVD from Strand Releasing on February 12 for those who miss its limited run at the Cinematheque, or who live in other parts of the state.

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