A boy comes of age in yeshiva, strip clubIsraeli yeshiva student enters a whole new 'Holy Land' world
Eitan Gorlin's The Holy Land begins with a montage of news clips of violence on the streets of Israeli cities, over which a woman's voice, dripping with contempt, says, "I hope Jews and Arabs kill each other until nobody is left." Provocative stuff, to be sure, and while The Holy Land is set against the backdrop of the Middle East crisis - or the sense of imminent crisis - this first film from the U.S.-raised Gorlin is, in fact, a mostly quiet, reflective coming-of-age story. Mendy (Oren Rehany), a yeshiva student whose focus on the Orthodox texts is in constant battle with his sexual fantasies, is directed by a rabbi to find a prostitute to exercise - and hence exorcise - his libido. It's the get-it-out-of-your-system theory.
Eitan Gorlin's The Holy Land begins with a montage of news clips of violence on the streets of Israeli cities, over which a woman's voice, dripping with contempt, says, "I hope Jews and Arabs kill each other until nobody is left."
Provocative stuff, to be sure, and while The Holy Land is set against the backdrop of the Middle East crisis - or the sense of imminent crisis - this first film from the U.S.-raised Gorlin is, in fact, a mostly quiet, reflective coming-of-age story. Mendy (Oren Rehany), a yeshiva student whose focus on the Orthodox texts is in constant battle with his sexual fantasies, is directed by a rabbi to find a prostitute to exercise - and hence exorcise - his libido. It's the get-it-out-of-your-system theory.
This seems dubious advice, at best, but Mendy takes it wholeheartedly, heading for a Tel Aviv strip club where more intimate services are rendered in a back room. It is here where Mendy meets, and falls for, a 19-year-old hooker from Ukraine. The young man soon finds himself obsessed with the hard young woman, Sasha (Tchelet Semel), hanging out, bringing her flowers, caught up in her world. He meets a wild-tempered American (Saul Stein), a retired photojournalist who owns a bar in Jerusalem, and who offers Mendy a job pouring drinks there.
And so the sensitive rabbinical student leaves home, ostensibly to study in Jerusalem (that's what he tells his parents), but really to serve beers and shots to an array of characters: rowdy drunks, a hustling Palestinian black marketeer, an aloof professor, and a gun-toting ex-Brooklynite who calls himself the Exterminator.
And, of course, there is Sasha, who spends a good deal of time at the divey Jerusalem bar, and who, letting down her guard, gets close to Mendy. Or as close as she can get.
Gorlin, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in the early '90s and lived in Israel for several years thereafter (including a turn in the Israeli Army), tells his love story in broad strokes. But the performances from Rehany and Semel resonate, and the depiction of a community, and a country, where conflict and comradeship collide in unexpected ways, is deeply revealing.
It comes as no surprise to discover that the voice-over at the film's start belongs to Sasha, and that her bitterness speaks to a larger issue: the exploitation of immigrant workers (and sex workers) in modern-day Israel. In the psychologically scarred world of The Holy Land, sex and religion, love and hate, survival and despair all ricochet around, waiting to explode.
Contact movie critic Steven Rea
at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com.
The Holy Land
*** (out of four stars)
Produced by Udi Yerushalmi and Ran Bogin, written and directed by Eitan Gorlin, photography by Nils Kenaston, music by Chris Cunningham, distributed by Cavu Pictures.
Running time: 1 hour, 36 mins.
Mendy. . . Oren Rehany
Sasha. . . Tchelet Semel
Mike. . . Saul Stein
Razi. . . Albert Illuz
The Exterminator. . . Arie Moskuna
Parent's guide: No MPAA rating (nudity, sex, profanity, violence, adult themes)
Playing at: Ritz Five