Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Israeli film-makers Eytan Fox (director) and Gal Uchovsky (screenwriter) make films about people (Israelis and Palestinians and, in "Walk on Water" some Germans) trying to live, love, and find happiness against a foreground (would that it could ever be background!) of permanent war. The 2002 "Yossi and Jagger" was a heartbreaking story of love between two Israeli soldiers on the front lines (played by Ohad Knoller and Yehuda Levi). "Walk on Water" involved a straight Israeli Nazi hunter, Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi), and the gay grandson, Knut (Axel Himmelman), of the Nazi he was hunting. "Time Off" (available on "Boys Life 5") involves an Israeli enlisted man whose sexual identity is "questioning" and a closeted commanding officer who picks on him.

In the 2006 film "Ha-Buah", recently released on DVD here as "The Bubble," a Tel Aviv yuppie household of one woman and two gay men (who have never been sexually involved with each other) is disturbed by suicide bombers, a Palestinian lad who takes refuge with the three roommates (and in the bed of one), and a sweet and earnest Jewish youth who woos the f_ghag.

"Yossi and Jagger" and "The Bubble" are not "tragicomedies," because "comedy" is the root, "tragi-" darkening it. These two very powerful films are, instead, tragedies with a lot of tender and light moments along the way to the tragedies.

As Noam, Ohad Knoller is less rigid than he was as Yossi. He hates reserve duty manning a checkpoint. As a medic, he had to try to deliver a baby at the start of the movie. Among the Palestinians with the mother who goes into labor is Ashraf (Yousef Sweid, apparently a soap opera star in Israel).

Noam does not know that he dropped his ID (a plot device also used in "Time Off") and is surprised when Ashraf shows up with it. Noam and Ashraf are the Romeo and Juliet with Palestinians and Jews in place of the Montagues and Capulets (and no Duke above the factions....) As with Romeo and Juliet, it seemed to me that the two lovers from warring sides do not have much chance to get to know each other (Ashraf and Noam have more than R&J and are not as young and inexperienced as R&J). Ashraf's beloved sister Rana (Roba Blal) is the de facto Tybalt, killed by Israeli soldiers rather than by Noam. (And the Mercutio is maimed rather than killed...)

Noam's roommates, Yelli (Alon Freidmann) and Lulu (Daniella Wircer), help Ashraf to live and work within "the bubble" (the Sheinikin Street yuppie enclave). Yelli is a waiter at Orna and Sela's coffeehouse. Lulu designs graphics for protesting occupation of the West Bank, though one can easily wonder how effective having a "rave against the occupation" on the beach is on policy-making in Israel. But it is photogenic!

Yelli has many sexual partners and some longings for Noam. Lulu is breaking up with a magazine editor whom she sees with another woman, and is under siege from an adorable, earnest activist Shaul (Zion Baruch).

The Sheiken Street 'bubble" (between Ashenazy and Rothschild) is invaded by the violence of expropriated Palestinians--as I said, "The Bubble" is a tragedy though I will not reveal how or which ones of the leading characters succumb to the endless cycle of violence.

"Yossi and Jagger" remains my Fox/Uchovsky favorite, but there is much that I like in all three of their feature films (and the short one) that I've seen, and I look forward to more.

The making of feature on the DVD is especially interesting, because pretty much everyone who appears provides his or her own thoughts about "the bubble" of the Sheiken Street area (where Fox and Uchovsky live together, and far from the Lebanon border). I wish the romantic comedy could prevail, but external conflicts impinge, the world cannot be shut out...

One complaint I have, particularly for a film made by gay men, is the anatomically impossible position in the final Ashraf/Noam sex scene (second or third depending on what counts as a "sex scene").

I'd rate the film 4+-star, but the DVD 4.5+-star. The music video (to the cabaret performance of Gerswhin's "The Man I Love") is inferior to the music video on the "Yossi and Jaguar" DVD. The DVD includes US and Israeli theatrical trailer, but "The Making of 'The Bubble'" is the outstanding DVD bonus.

Tim Buckley's "Song of the Siren" is used at the end of the movie. Fox and Uchovsky made a film with that name in 1994 that was the major box office hit in Israel that year but that has not made it to DVD in the US yet (Grrrrrrrrrrr!)



© 2008, Stephen O. Murray




Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD