Last night I went to see the New York premier of The Bubble, the newest film from Israeli director Eytan Fox.  It was incredible.  The film, though long, is extremely well done and poignant.  The characters are real, and scenes will tug at your heart strings, and the storyline is thought provoking and humbling.

I was at the JCC in Manhattan to moderate a Q&A with the director and writers after the screening and found it difficult to find my voice immediately after the film.  The story is about many things, but focuses on the lives of three Israeli roommates living in Tel Aviv.  Two of them are Gay men and third is a Straight woman.  All are politically “left” though they try to create lives for themselves outside the sphere of politics.  Their lives all change when one of the roommates, played by Ohad Knoller (Yossi and Jagger), meets a Palestinian man, played by Yousef ‘Joe’ Sweid, and a love interest quickly forms between them.

The movie is not what you’d expect and manages to bring the viewer along on an emotional level.  The reaction by those at the screening was as varied as could possibly be.  Some thought it was too left wing, others thought it was too right wing.  Still others focused on the sex scenes.  I found it to be a fairly A-Political message.  The filmmakers take you into the lives of these four very realistic characters without judgment.  The political situation in Israel is treated as a character and represented more by its affect than its ideology.

The Details:

The Bubble
Habuah
Israel, 2006, 117 Minute Running Time
Genres: Drama, Gay/Lesbian
Language: Hebrew and Arabic
English Sub-Titles

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 illustrating that even love can’t always bridge irreconcilable differences.
Director Eytan Fox is scheduled to attend both screenings.

DIRECTOR: Eytan Fox
Producer: Gal Uchovsky, Ronen Ben Tal, Amir Feingold
Editor: Yosef Grunfeld, Yaniv Raiz
Screenwriter: Gal Uchovsky, Eytan Fox
Cinematographer: Yaron Scharf
Music: Ivri Lider
Principal Cast: Ohad Knoller, Yousef ‘Joe’ Sweid, Daniela Wircer, Alon Friedmann
Filmography: Walk on Water (2004), Yossi & Jagger (2003)
US Distributor: Strand Releasing
World Sales: Scalpel Films

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