Une grâce stupéfiante

ever watched. It deals so gently and subtly not only with Aids (which is only alluded) and gay life, but also with old age, dying and death. It's a deep and beautiful movie, (also visually), of a very special director. Highly recommanded1

"Amazing Grace" has a languid feel to it as it tells a contemporary story of various lives in an apartment building. The language spoken is Hebrew, but the drama could take place in any modern city. It observes family values, romantic relationships, and age group characteristics with equal aplomb. It does not judge the characters, only present them in a straight forward manner, as they strive to work out their individual problems in this modern world. The quality of acting is very good, and the observations made on the characters are astute and sharp. I appreciate this flowing film very much.

Maybe some people may consider this a slow movie. However, it's precisely this "slow burning" that allows it to profoundly affect the viewer. Like that marvelous first scene: first, we can hear the voices; then, we are allowed to see the characters; finally, the camera slowly pans back and to the side and we see another character, a young man who is just sitting there, apparently not even listening to the conversation or, at least, not really caring. The fact that this young man will be the leading role shows the movie's strategy: allowing the character to develop and be determined by the environment surrounding him but without remarking the points more than necessary. People come and go, flow in and out of his life. Although most of the movie follows him (and most of the supporting characters are only seen when close to him, defined according to the relationship maintained with him), we are induced to believe that we are being objective, so subtle is the director touch.

This is the touching story of two families in Israel and the relationships within each family. Each family has a gay son. The stories are interrelated at that point but this film is about all of the family members, not just the two sons. The portraits of each of the family members in both families are well drawn and the story is consistently interesting if a bit bleak.

Unfortunately, the director Amos Guttman died from Aids-related illnesses the year after making this film, so we don't know how many more gay-related films we might have had from him. I found this used DVD, from Cinevista, on Amazon, but it looks like none of his other works are still available. Hessed Mufla (Amazing Grace) contains full frontal male nudity, at least in magazines, which turn into a wishful dream sequence. and some drug use. This is the story of two families getting by, or trying to, but the mothers, the daughters, and the gay sons all have their own problems to figure out. Jonathan (played by Gal Hoyberger) meets up with the next door neighbor Thomas, who has his own problems, of course. Either the translations are a little weak, or maybe Guttman kept the conversation sparse on purpose, for a little mystery. Watching this, I get the feeling we're not getting the whole story, but that's OK. Throw in a cute gay roommate ex-lover Miki (Aki Avni, who went on to do many projects, mostly Isreali TV) Lots of smoking. Lots of worrying by the mothers. A great blues song "All Night Long Blues" done by an unknown female artist; if she is listed in the credits,sadly it was not translated to English. Nice to see mothers and siblings treating gay relationships with respect, like any other relationship. But then, USA always has been years behind other countries in this way. A good way to spend 98 minutes... I wanted to see even more of it. Won awards at several film festivals, acc to IMDb and the film jacket.