Thursday, October 23, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: Middle East thinkpiece

Eitan Gorlin takes a perceptive, provocative look at The Holy Land

By Anthony Allison

Nothing makes life seem more precious than the threat of imminent death. And nothing intensifies passion more than its being unrequited.

Set against the turbulent background of perennial Middle East conflict, The Holy Land is a coming-of-age tale about an Israeli student who falls in love with a Russian prostitute.

But don't be deterred by the seemingly clichéd storyline or depressingly familiar setting. Eitan Gorlin's outstanding first feature is much more than the tale of a dorky Jew and the proverbial whore with a heart of gold. Thanks to excellent writing, superlative acting and evocative location work, this well-observed debut offers an intriguing glimpse behind the daily headlines--from its provocative opening image of a burning Israeli flag to a truly haunting ending.

After a world-weary voiceover ("Men in Middle East are primitive and stupid. They treat women like dogs, worse than dogs. I hope the Jews and Arabs kill each other until nobody left"), the film focuses on Mendy (Oren Rehany), a horny yeshiva student who, unable to concentrate on his studies, follows the advice of his rabbi (Alon Dahan), to "visit a harlot." In a Tel Aviv strip club he meets Sasha (Tchelet Semel) and, besotted, finds his infatuation growing when her favorite client intrudes. Mike (Saul Stein) is a former war photographer who, shades of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, runs a Jerusalem bar that's a melting pot and meeting place for Jews, Arabs, expatriates and other assorted drunks. Pursuing the ever-indifferent Sasha, Mendy takes a job there, tending bar.

Rehany is a revelation as the confused 20-year-old hero, shy, awkward and socially inept, yet far from pathetic. Mendy's unlikely attraction to Sasha is balanced by wholly credible doubts, as he wrestles with his sexuality and his spiritual confusion. Mendy, whose character is based on the over-inquisitive prince in a parable about the Jewish diaspora, has a deep love of his faith and heritage, yet rejects what another character contemptuously calls "that sniveling, stuck-in-the-ghetto Judaism."

With deceptive ease, Semel manages the perfect mix of cynicism and vulnerability, revealing the pain of a woman enduring sexual slavery to secure her eventual freedom. Sasha's back story is concisely sketched in a powerful scene involving her old piano teacher (Igor Mirkorbanov) that speaks agonizing volumes.

Stein's larger-than-life character, meanwhile, has exactly the sort of boorish, exuberant magnetism that would attract shy student and happy hooker alike.

Such verisimilitude and perceptiveness clearly derives from personal experience. Gorlin, an Orthodox American Jew, abandoned his own rabbinical studies and later worked in a Jerusalem bar run by a Canadian photojournalist. There he met the characters he chronicled in a 1997 novella, "Mike's Place, A Jerusalem Diary," which became the basis of his screenplay.

Foremost among these colorful souls is the Exterminator (Arie Moskuna), a hard-line Jewish settler who carries everywhere his government-issued M-16 and his jaundiced views. "Don't you understand that this whole so-called `peace process' is a scam set up by rich Americans to exploit the millennium and the millions of Christian gullible tourists?" he scowls. "And who is the biggest victim? The Arab on the street."

Then there's Razi (Albert Illuz), an affable Arab real estate broker who makes discreet land deals between pragmatic Palestinian land owners and Jewish settlers.

Finally, there's Jamal (Arie Hasfari), a Palestinian urchin who cheerfully offers to "throw rocks at soldier car." He's a somewhat obvious symbol of innocence corrupted by enduring enmity. But, like the film, he also offers a sobering reminder that no matter how hard these people try, normal life is forever impossible in an unholy land of eternal conflict.
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Critic's pick

The daily news from Israel is depressing and predictable, but The Holy Land offers a refreshingly different perspective. Eitan Gorlin's debut feature opens Friday at the Village Square.