The Holy Land

Themes of love and trust, played out against a backdrop the horror of which doesn't become clear until the film's final moments, are told in a way that never becomes as predictable as anticipated. Who is the one who really loves? Who is the one who is really honest? This is that increasingly rare jewel: a thought-provoking movie. It is impossible that anyone who actually watches the movie as it unfolds could conclude that it is pro-Palestinian.

I watched "Holy Land" (first time, on DVD). Enjoyed it. Watched "Leaving Las Vegas" couple of days later (first time, on DVD). And realized there is something in common. To avoid spoilers I will not specify similarities, but invite you to take a look and think for yourself whether you agree or disagree with me.

I liked "Holy Land" (8/10). Pace is generally good. It is slow in comparison with action, but, well, it is not action. Director is not insulting intelligence of viewers by explaining things too much, and I believe there are certain things (like true feelings of Sasha, for example) that you can only guess. Story grows like a tree, not telephone pole, with many branches going nowhere, adding credibility (Hints of Mike's life and current business, for example).

Finally, I want to notice, that movie set in Israel.

The story is about a Jewish boy growing up in an orthodox Jewish family. Like many such environments he is told all the answers of life and religion and is not allowed to explore them for himself. Feeling sexually repressed he is told to go to a brothel by his rabbi to get it out of his system. There he meets and falls in love with a Russian prostitute "Sasha". Throughout the movie he meets many original but believable characters including an M16 touting American Jew that calls himself the "exterminator". Mike an American photojournalist that runs a bar called Mikes Place in Jerusalem. In Mikes place Arabs and Jews drink side by side in a late 60's early 70's hippie kind of atmosphere.

This movie is bazaar but is also believable with it's rich environments around Israel. It shows a realistic version of Israel depicting the Jerusalem night life and life in general. Some religious tension does exist in the film but is not the main focus that Americans often see in CNN and other Hollywood movies.

The movie is about growing up, about religion and the questions we all ask about god, about finding answer's for ourselves, about falling in love, about innocence, about making a life for yourself. The Holy Land takes a deep look into the human experience like none I have ever seen before but does it in a realistic way that doesn't drag you down and depresses you when you are done watching it. By the end of the movie you are thoughtful, a little sad but feel like you just experienced something special.

"Holy Land" tells a story as old as the Bible, and in films certainly as old as "The Blue Angel," in a nerd's obsession with a scarlet woman.

The twist is the obsession is at an incendiary intersection, of secular Tel Aviv vs observant Jerusalem, of old-fashioned and religious vs modern and profane Israeli Jews, of American and Russian immigrants with starkly opposite motivations from fanaticism to economic opportunity, of Arabs vs Jews, of intellectuals vs thugs, of terrorists of all kinds of ages and beliefs and tactics vs burned-out drunks.

In a place obsessed with history, each character is trying to lose the individual past that haunts them, and ends up trapped by it. The story is powerful, based on the writer/director Eitan Gorlin's original novella, but is hampered by execution in poor quality technical production with some amateur actors.

It has some similarities to other recent films, being somewhat more sympathetic to the Orthodox lifestyle than the rabidly prejudiced "Kadosh" (here the yeshiva boy's tearful reaction to the casually cruel cutting of his forelocks was really moving), and was like "Lilja 4-ever" in showing how psychically manipulative is the exploitation of former Eastern Bloc women.

It seems that what all the cultures of the Mideast have in common is unbridled lust such that they end up agreeing on "Where is God? He's in your dick."

In the mix of languages even within a single sentence and accents, I appreciated the presence of subtitles whenever it wasn't clear what was being said.

...but first time writer/director Eitan Gorlin, adapting from his own play, takes too much for granted in the destinies of his characters, a rabbinical student and a Russian prostitute, as well as for the supporting players. There could be so much that could happen to these characters, so many different turns they could take in their relationship, and while it unfolds as something that's somewhat acceptable, it contains an outcome that's a too pre-ordained.

The set-up has minor promise- a rabbinical student is told by his teacher that he should let off some steam, so to speak, by paying a trip to a whorehouse around in Tel Aviv before completely immersing himself in his studies (to get it out of his system). He meets a prostitute, and a Mike, a drunk who owns a bar in Jerusalem and who also gives a place to live for his girl as, soon enough, as well as for the student. Eventually, the student works as a bartender, meets the locals, the radicals, and sees for himself what it's like in such a landscape. Among this, an amicable, though non-sexual relationship commences with the the two opposites- the student awkward and introspective and the prostitute sarcastic and (when she needs to be) emotional.

I can't say that I hated the Holy Land, because there seemed to be a earnest urgency to show, in good intentions, what it's like in the city against the thinking of Americans of the region. It's dangerous terrain, but it's not like how the media here portrays it exactly. And while our lead character comes of age by drinking and smoking and being among these people and all that, he leaves without much of a change in him, or towards the girl he has admired and adored for the length of the picture. In other words, it may be pretty hard to care about these people as much as Gorlin wants us to, and it's evident that it gets too conventional for its own good (the ending, especially, seems like it has a need for closure that it shouldn't of had). Grade: C