The Bubble.

Last night I went to the Tribeca Film Festival.  I have been seeing a lot of movies this past weekend and sadly I have wanted to walk out of nearly all of them.  Which given that I have never walked out of a movie in my life, is an incredibly bad sign for the film.  Last night I was rewarded for paying the incredible ticket price ($18.50 without popcorn) that Tribeca charges, by seeing The Bubble ( Ha Buah) directed by Eytan Fox.  I don't want to overhype the film but it was by far the best movie I have ever seen that dealt with gay issues.  The Bubble also did an amazing job in giving the viewer the incredible atmosphere and emotion of what it feels like to be in Tel Aviv, as well as Israel and Palestine. Without discussing my politics on the whole issue (which changed while watching the film), I want to highly recommend to everyone to see this movie when it is released nationwide this summer by Strand Releasing.  

The story follows the life of a group of young friends living in Tel Aviv.  It is as much a love story as it is a story of the incredible isolation that people in Tel Aviv have from the rest of the country, and the world.  The young friends, the three roommates, treat their hip Tel Aviv neighborhood like their own chic paradise, relatively sheltered from Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. But when an Israeli boy meets an Palestinian boy at a border checkpoint, this artificial bubble bursts and my does it burst.  The story is heart wrenching, the relationships are amazingly believable and identifiable, the sex is done tastefully and beautifully unlike most gay films (though this movie also centers on a straight couple), and the sensation you have when you leave the theater is one that should bring hope to the world.

Tribeca blurb:  Director Fox follows up Walk on Water and Yossi & Jagger with this story that shows that even love can't bridge irreconcilable differences. A Strand Release. Tel Aviv is like a bubble-an airless, European-built city relatively sheltered from violence. For three roommates-record store clerk Noam (Ohad Knoller, star of Yossi & Jagger); shop girl and aspiring screenwriter Lulu (Daniela Wircer); and restaurant manager and aspiring fashion designer Yelli (Alon Friedman), who never wants to leave Tel Aviv; it's a slacker paradise where twentysomethings watch ""Israeli Idol,"" debate the merits of George Michael vs. Morrissey, and throw a ""Rave Against the Occupation,"" which is really an excuse to take Ecstasy and dance on the beach. But when Noam meets a Palestinian boy named Ashraf (Yousef Sweid) during a tour of duty at a checkpoint on the Israeli-Palestinian border, the bubble bursts. Ashraf looks up Noam in Tel Aviv and before long, this young man whose sister is marrying a Hamas soldier named Jihad (Shredi Jabarin), and who himself is already betrothed to his future brother-in-law's sister, is living with the roommates under a Hebrew name and experiencing a life of sexual freedom unimaginable in the Arab world-where there isn't even a phrase for ""out of the closet."" Wearing hipster t-shirts, listening to Tim Buckley, and holding hands with Noam as they take in Walk on Water star Lior Ashkenazi in a production of Bent, Ashraf seems carefree. But Fox and co-screenwriter Gal Uchovsky have a much older play in mind, and suddenly, the stakes become much higher.

Check out the early English trailer here.