Rating of
3/4
An LGBT Film About Politics
Franz Patrick - wrote on 01/03/09
This movie showed my limited knowledge of the Israeli culture, which I think is a great thing because I’m that much more aware by the end of the day. I was surprised by how much the characters are aware and admire the American and European cultures. I enjoyed the references such as the play (which was also turned into a movie) “Bent,” competitions like “American Idol,” to actors like River Phoenix. And those are only some of the references that are talked about; some are posters on the walls and some can be seen on their television sets. In a way, these characters use foreign media to escape the unstable politics of their country. On top of that, the characters deal with finding romance–whether it’s a woman (Daniela Virtzer) searching for a man, or a man (Ohad Knoller) searching for another man (Yousef “Joe” Sweid). For an LGBT picture, it’s very political. I imagine casual moviegoers who want a typical boy-meets-boy story will be very frustrated with this because politics and romance get an equal amount of screen time. But that’s the reason why I was consistently interested in what was going on in the film: the LGBT characters are complex in a different way. It’s nice to see how the characters show their love for country by voicing out how much they oppose the war instead of supporting it. From some of the people I met, they think that the only way to show love for your country is to support its agendas–whatever they may be. This is one of the more meaningful, sensitive, intelligent, and challenging LGBT movies I’ve seen in a while.
