The Bubble (2006) – Gay Interest Film Review

A Gay Romantic Drama Movie From Israeli Writer/Director Eytan Fox

Aug 13, 2009

The Bubble (Ha-Buah), starring Ohad Knoller and written by Eytan Fox, is a beautifully written and powerful drama on what life is like in Tel Aviv for young gay Israelis.

A romantic comedy with a razor edge, The Bubble (Ha-Buah), written and directed by Eytan Fox, tells the story of a group of gay Israeli and Palestinian twenty-somethings and their day-to-day life in Tel Aviv’s Westernised society, exploring what happens when love, ethnic tension and anti gay feelings collide to burst that little circle of safety.

At an Israeli check-point, a reserve soldier called Noam and a young Palestinian named Ashraf are thrown together when an Arab woman travelling with Ashraf goes into premature labour. In the confusion Noam looses his ID card. Days later, back at the apartment Noam shares with his gay room-mate Yelli and a vivacious young woman called Lulu, Noam finds Ashraf at his door, having come to return the lost ID card.

The two fall into an “explosive” love (a joke typical of the irony found throughout The Bubble). Noam asks Ashraf to stay with him, but the dangers of an unauthorised Palestinian residing in Tel Aviv are obvious. Undeterred, Noam invents a new persona for Ashraf and gets him a job at a restaurant owned by friends. Unfortunately, Ashraf is recognised and flees back to his family in the West Bank, leaving Noam behind.

Crossing the border several times, the two manage to maintain their gay love affair for a time, until tragedy strikes. Ashraf’s sister is killed by an Israeli soldier the day after her wedding. Her husband, a member of a radical Palestinian group, promises vengeance. Distraught, and believing his relationship with Noam to be over, Ashraf takes a dramatic leap and becomes a suicide bomber, taking his brother-in-law's place.

Ashraf walks through Tel Aviv, returning to the restaurant in which he once worked. By chance, Noam is there and sees Ashraf stood outside. He recognises the paunch of a concealed bomb. Confronted with Noam's presence, Ashraf moves to stand in the middle of the street to minimize the damage he is about to cause. Noam comes out to him and the two move to embrace just as the bomb detonates.

Almost uniformly excellent, the cast of the film, including the captivating Ohad Knoller (Noam) and the fearless Yousef Sweid (Ashraf), bring to life a gay romance story that is moving and dramatically relevant. At times impatient, the ending of The Bubble is perhaps the easiest place in which to say the movie falls short. Whilst admittedly feeling forced, to propose that the movie's conclusion was an easy option misunderstands the nature of the gay Israeli drama itself.

Ashraf and Noam were going to die from the moment Ashraf was stopped at the check-point and Noam saw him bare his stomach to show that he was not carrying an explosive device. In retrospect this foreshadowing, the doom of their forbidden love, seems clear. But if this is so, what is The Bubble’s message as a movie? That violence perpetuates violence, and that the insular life of gay Israelis, whilst being necessary, may be futile in affecting change beyond Tel Aviv's borders.

Musician Ivri Lider provides the soundtrack for The Bubble with some elegant choices, including his own cameo performance cover of "The Man I Love". Add to this some stunning visuals from Eytan Fox, as well as Ohad Knoller’s truly devoted performance, and the triumvirate that was first started in the 2002 film Yossi & Jagger continues to build and better itself.

The Bubble is more than the sum of its parts, and though not particularly slick, the movie cuts to the heart of the Israeli Palestinian conflict with a romantic love between two men as a theme to bridge the divide, highlighting the human fallibility of the situation. In this way Eytan Fox manages to do a great many things in a single breath, thus making The Bubble a gay themed Israeli film worthy of much praise.

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