The Bubble

Ha'Buah
Director: Eytan Fox
Israel 2006 117 mins
Language: Hebrew/Arabic with English subtitles
Cast: Ohad Knoller, Yousef Sweid, Daniela Virtzer, Alon Friedman
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Eytan Fox is no stranger to UK audiences since his 2005 hit Walk on Water, so it
is with great pleasure that we present his recent feature, garlanded with awards
from Berlin to Toronto. The title refers to Tel Aviv’s hip Sheinkin Street,
supposedly isolated from the surrounding turmoil, where we join a close-knit
group of friends including gay record-store clerk Noam (Knoller, star of Fox’s
delightful Yossi & Jagger).
On checkpoint duty Noam meets Palestinian Ashraf (Sweid) and they begin an
affair, while Noam’s room-mates - beautiful Lulu (Virtzer) and sardonic Yelli
(Friedman) - take their own faltering steps towards happiness. These kids aren’t
afraid of a bit of grass-roots activism, organising a beach rave for Tel Aviv’s
pacifist youth, but the bubble is about to burst: Ashraf must return home for his
sister’s marriage, to a Hamas extremist who doesn’t take kindly to gays, or
Israelis. The ending may divide opinion, but Fox offers a remarkable retelling of
Romeo & Juliet - funny and vividly sexy, yet often surprisingly bleak.