Oct 26, 2007  |  By: GREG MARZULLO  | COMMENTS     

With polarizing ethnic and religious conflicts a part of every newscast, gay Israeli director Eyton Fox’s “The Bubble” couldn’t come at a more perfect time. It’s a sharp-edged reflection of the divisions that create a sense of global insanity, and yet, sadly, the film eventually succumbs to the very cultural myopia it so valiantly struggles against.

During mandatory Israeli army service at an Israeli checkpoint, Noam (Ohad Knoller, also seen in Fox’s hit “Yossi and Jagger”)

first glimpses a seemingly gay Palestinian, Ashraf (Yousef Sweid). Their cruising is interrupted by a nearby pregnant Palestinian woman who goes into a complicated labor — a strong symbol of the attempt to give new life to Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Noam finishes his turn in the army and is welcomed back to cosmopolitan Tel-Aviv by his friends and roommates, the progressive Lulu (Daniela Wircer) and the super-gay Yali (Alon Friedman). Soon, Ashraf arrives at the roomies’ doorstep in search of Noam, and after a passionate night where they discover “how Jews kiss” and “how Arabs do it,” the couple wants to stay together. Lulu and a wary Yali decide to invite Ashraf into their home, an illegal act given the Palestinian’s non-resident status.

In scenes reminiscent of “My Fair Lady” (or given the film’s dark ending, perhaps Lerner and Loewe’s source material, Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” would be a better fit), the Israelis dress up Ashraf, give him a new name and help him blend in with the legal residents. Yali gets him a job at the café he manages, and with love in the air, everything seems to be going well (if you consider the need for Ashraf to become someone else a happy ending).

BUT THE PRESSURES of living a lie (an experience shared by many gay people, one of the film’s more subtle points) force Ashraf back home, causing Noam and Lulu to search for him. They find him at his sister’s wedding and convince him to come back, which he agrees to, but not before Ashraf’s new brother-in-law plans and executes a bombing in Tel-Aviv that wounds Yali.

Yali ends up OK, but Ashraf, whose family gets caught up in the persecution at the hands of Israeli soldiers on the rampage after the bombing, decides to take up arms.

In October last year, I interviewed lesbian filmmaker Elle Flanders about her stellar documentary “Zero Degrees of Separation,” a look at her own family’s hand in the creation of Israel and the experience of Israeli-Palestinian gay couples. She mentioned “The Bubble” with a certain amount of disappointment because of its ending, something she saw as anything but groundbreaking.

It wasn’t until after viewing the film for this summer’s Philadelphia gay film festival (“The Bubble” has been very popular on the festival circuit) that I was reminded of Flanders’ reaction, partly because mine was so similar.

At Ashraf and Noam’s first meeting, as the Palestinian woman is stuck at an inhospitable checkpoint trying to give birth to her child, the cross-cultural couple share that glance of connection known to so many gay men, but this is shattered by the wail of a mother and the stillborn death of the infant. A fitting commentary on the future of peace in the region — especially as seen through the eyes of Fox and Uchovsky.