The Holy Land

i almost missed this gem of a movie. a number of critics have damned it with faint praise. fortunately, a lawyer friend of mine, Mike, had no particular interest in anything else currently showing. so, he agreed to see it with me, because it would count as "my pick" -- meaning that he would have the next pick.

"The Holy land" is a coming of age story. but the protagonist, Mendy, is not just any run-of-the-mill naif. he is a rabbinical student in Tel Aviv, and the scion of a line of ultra-orthodox rabbis. his family is wonderfully wholesome, while Mendy is unbearably horny. the head rabbi at his yeshiva, noting Mendy's inability to concentrate on his studies, cites a passage in the Talmud (while denying that he is advising it) that states that a young man who visits a professional female companion will come away more focused on his religious studies.

Mendy does not need to have his arm twisted. soon he finds a strip joint, goes in, meets the charming and beautiful Sasha, and falls in love with her. through Sasha he meets Mike, a larger than life character who owns a bar in Jerusalem where stock Arab and Jewish characters seamlessly mix in a sort of bizarre version of "Cheers".

it is a timeless story about the conflict in the soul of every young adult (who has a pulse) between the idealistic pull from above to transcend our human nature, and the tug from below to experience the pleasures of the flesh precisely at that point in life when we are most able to enjoy them. having been raised as an ultra-orthodox Jew, Mendy has grown up in a culture second to none in its seriousness about avoiding the distractions of the secular world. yet, as an intelligent and sensitive young man, Mendy can't help but be elated by seeing the maps in an atlas, to give just one example of how sheltered his life had been before then.

Oren Rehany deserves an Oscar for his performance as Mendy. he wordlessly conveys more emotion with the expressions on his face than most actors can deliver in a full blown soliloquy. Tchelet Semel, as Sasha, is not just "the girl". she's a fully developed character, with youth, beauty, and a mother back in Russia who needs money to pay for heat in the winter.

and, all of this takes place against the backdrop of Jerusalem -- site of the world's longest running battle for the soul of man. so, what's the catch? the catch is that you can't dramatize the conflict between the sacred and the profane if you leave out the profane. and, if you love Israel, you may feel uncomfortable with a film that spends so much time on the dark side of life there, especially the IDF's routine treatment of Palestinians. (who wouldn't be uncomfortable seeing the warts of one's beloved displayed on the big screen?) but, if you can get beyond that, this movie is well worth seeing.

oh, Mike was very grateful that i picked this movie ;-)

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.

No point retelling the plot. The plot is not that important. This film shows true life. Warts and all. The director is not trying to take sides (Arab or Jew), he is not trying to lecture anybody. He just shows a snapshot of life in Israel. He is showing interaction between different people of different backgrounds. The actors are not very known, but all play very well. Acting is superb and the action is completely unpredictable. It is not a "Hollywood" movie so do not expect a typical formula with a happy end. This is a must see important film.

PS: Somebody complained in here about kids used as suicide bombers. In fact this does happen. I remember in the press about a year ago they caught a 13 year old boy all rigged up with bombs at a border crossing. There were hundreds of suicide bombings and attempted bombings. Whether this ruins somebody comfortable theory of this conflict or not, this is the fact of life.

[See the IMDb page for this film for the cast - none are known in the U.S.]

"The Holy Land" is a stark, unusual, powerful gaze at Israel's dark underbelly of drugs, prostitution, zany and not necessarily sane Jewish settlers (some are American expatriates) and Palestinians who maintain relations with Jews.

Conventional love stories often provide the backdrop for a director's vision of political turbulence and strife. This one's a bit off the radar screen. Mendy is a yeshiva student expected to spend (waste in my view) his life studying dense tomes of arcane lore and law while producing nothing of value to anyone. An inquiring young man who senses the imprisoning limitations of his religious culture, he reads "profane" literature and masturbates in his bathroom while his ultra-Orthodox parents prepare festive holiday meals. His mother emigrated to Israel from the states and there met her husband. The couple is a caricature of a fundamentalist lifestyle in which everything is regulated and little is understood.

On the advice of a seedy rabbi who sees Mendy isn't with the yeshiva program, he goes to a bar that is a slim cover for prostitution. He meets, receives manual release from and falls in love with a hooker, Sasha, a Russian. She's pretty, cynical and knows how to work a besotted kid.

Their turbulent relationship takes them across Jerusalem where they spend a lot of time in "Mike's Place," a gin mill where Palestinians and Jews are equally welcome as long as they check their firearms behind the bar.

"Mike's Place" is in the tradition of Rick's Cafe but quite a few rungs lower on the ladder of civilized life. The interactions of the bar denizens are interesting and highlight the reality of Israel's unsteady and contentious pluralities. Some of the interactions between members of different (and differing) groups would be funny except there's little to laugh at here.

Director Eilan Gorlin pulls off the difficult task of involving the viewer not just with travelogue quality shots of Jerusalem (obligatory Wailing Wall scenes, of course) but by injecting a particular thought that the watcher can't escape. Are all these people what they seem to be? Or is each, perhaps excepting the horny deserter from Talmud studies, a husbander of secrets, some very dark?

This movie was made several years ago and had a very limited circulation. The bar in the film was actually the scene of a recent terrorist attack according to a theater-lobby posted story. I don't know how widely it will be available in this re-release.

"The Holy Land" (and I wondered if sarcasm underlay the title) is disturbing and engrossing. New and improved peace plans can be floated weekly but this film conveys, without overt preaching of political views, the maelstrom that is Israel today.

An important film.

8/10.

...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