ISRAEL: Israeli film "The Bubble" examines how even the hedonistic party people of Tel Aviv have to deal with the realities of life in the Middle East

Record ID: 396528

  • Title: ISRAEL: Israeli film "The Bubble" examines how even the hedonistic party people of Tel Aviv have to deal with the realities of life in the Middle East
  • Date: 2nd November 2006
  • Summary: PEOPLE WALKING PAST NEWSPAPER STAND
  • Embargoed: 17th November 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA46ZLG7AMO271LFI2UIDF7YGPA
  • Story Text: In a region fraught with conflict, where ethnic or religious identity so frequently define a person's experiences, Tel Aviv stands out as a liberal, easy-going and relaxed oasis -- or at least that's what those who live in the laid-back city believe.
    Instead "The Bubble", a new movie that made its international premier in Toronto film festival last month, examines how no matter how hard the self-centred and hedonistic party people of Tel Aviv try, the realities of life in the Middle East force their way into their carefree existence.
    Movie makers Eytan Fox and Gal Uchovsky tell their story through the eyes of a gay couple - one Israeli and one Palestinian - a relationship that would be scorned and shunned elsewhere in Israel or the Palestinian Territories but which stands a slim chance of success in easy-going Tel Aviv.
    The unravelling of their relationship gives the film its drama and tension, while also revealing the true colours of Tel Aviv -- a sun-kissed Mediterranean city that would like to turn its back on the travails of the Middle East but never can.
    The story follows the lives of Noam, an Israeli Jewish man, and Ashraf, a Palestinian living in the West Bank, who meet by chance at a checkpoint in the West Bank where Noam is serving as a soldier in the Israeli army. Another chance encounter later takes place in Tel Aviv, and slowly a love story develops.
    The story is not so far removed from the lives of its writers -- Fox and Uchovsky are themselves a gay couple living in downtown Tel Aviv in the same street -- ultra trendy Sheinkin Street -- where "The Bubble" takes place.
    In its dramatic unfolding, "The Bubble" reveals to Noam and Ashraf the bitter realities of cultural misunderstanding, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and the Palestinian suicide bombings that have torn Israeli and Palestinian society apart.
    It also illuminates the twisted humour that accompanies a gay, cross-cultural relationship in the midst of a war zone. As one of the film's characters ruminates at one point, what happens to a homosexual Palestinian suicide bomber? Does he still receive 70 virgins in heaven, as some Muslims believe, or does he receive 70 well-muscled young men?
    Writer and producer Uchovsky says Tel Aviv's self-conscious alienation from the region's politics is a survival mechanism that anyone would adopt when living in a war zone, but it's not a technique that is always successful.
    "This attempt which is like sometimes even to us looks ridiculous that we are trying to have a normal life in this crazy Middle East, its an attempt. I think it is an interesting attempt. For me it is the only way to survive," Uchovsky says.
    "If I would have to live my life in the West Bank and all day long deal with settlements and settlers and everything that comes with it I would kill myself," Uchovsky says, sitting in a trendy cafe' in the artistic hub of Tel Aviv.
    But while Noam and Ashraf were trying to engage more in love and less in war, reality seemed to overcome their attempts to do so.
    "Life is sometimes much bigger than the wishes of some individuals and the fate of the country or the nation is sometimes bigger than the fate of the individual," Uchovsky says.
    Actor Yousef Sweid, who plays the character of Ashraf in the movie, finds that in both the Jewish and the Arab societies the political issues would always win over the social and personal ones.
    "We don't get the chance to open other issues for discussion and these political problems become greater. This is the problem," Sweid says, sitting in a cafe' in downtown Tel-Aviv, where he lives with his Jewish Israeli girlfriend.
    29-years-old Sweid, a christian Arab who stars in an Israeli soap opera and plays various roles in Israeli theatres and movies, says that as an Arab he sympathizes with Ashraf and the Palestinian plight, but prefers to live in a bubble. "As Yousef I chose to live in the world of Tel Aviv, with the Jews, with this kind of freedom, sexual and religious freedom," Sweid says.
    The movie premiered in Israel just before the break out of the July-August Israeli-Hizbollah war that claimed the lives of at least 1,100 people in Lebanon and 157 Israelis.
    The bubble-like aspect of Tel Aviv drew even stronger criticism in the midst of the 34-days war by many who claimed that when there is a war there is no room for a bubble.
    The trail of the young lovers in the movie follows close to Shakespeare's tragedy "Romeo and Juliet". The filmmakers initially worked the title "Romeo and Julio" for the movie, but changed it to "the Bubble" to better reflect what is going on in Israel today.
    "There is a different life here," Uchovsky says. "Everyone thinks that Israel is this place where people wear uniform and not Prada."
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