Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Seeds of Gay Love Sprout Even In the Most Hostile Soil: A Review of the films "Eyes Wide Open" and "The Brotherhood"

Imagine a movie about two men who live in an extremely homophobic, yet highly male-identified community. These two men are deeply involved in their community — a group that gives them an identity, a place in the world, a way to understand everything. Yet these men find themselves so powerfully attracted to each other that they are willing to risk their position, their friends, family, their deepest beliefs and even their lives to be together. Have you seen this movie before? Yes and no.

 

Two new movies explore this rapidly growing new cinema motif. Because while this paradigm could well describe the plot of Brokeback Mountain, it also describes one movie that takes place in an enclave of ultra-orthodox Jews in Jerusalem and a second that follows a relationship that unfolds between to members of a band of neo-Nazis in Denmark.

 

Yes, where the ultra-orthodox Jews and neo-Nazis find common ground is in hatred of queer people. So oddly enough in the last year we saw two movies released that tell stories as parallel as the photographs of couples in these such outwardly different groups.

 

The Brotherhood, which won the top prize at last year’s Rome Film Festival, follows the story of Lars and Jimmy, two young, angry and rootless young men in Denmark whose passionate hatred of immigrants (and gay men — the film begins with a disturbingly real gay bashing scene) turns to passion for each other. Eyes Wide Open, which can be seen in New York City at the Jewish Film Festival on January 19th at the Manhattan JCC, tells the story of Aaron and Ezri, two ultra-orthodox Jewish men caught in the claustrophobic world of the Haredi in Israel. The parallels between the stories are unsettling, but at this point should not be a surprise.

 

These parallels are simply be the sign that there is a pattern to this kind of story that, like the films of an earlier generation, will be revealed as a kind of forbidden romance motif. And of course, the father of this new generation of gay forbidden romance films is Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, which also takes place in the male-dominated community of cowboys.

 

Like Brokeback, in both of these films one man is the experienced initiator — the Tempter template if you will. And like Brokeback, they follow a very similar trajectory. In some ways, all these films are like Harlequin Romances in their strict adherence to a form. Of course, you know a Harlequin Romance, with all its twists and turns will end happily. But following the Brokeback pattern (and considering the communities these stories take place in) I won’t be spoiling anything to tell you not to expect a happy ending in either of these films.

 

This is not to say the movies aren’t good. Both of them are quite good in fact. And this isn’t to suggest you won’t be surprised or left with questions at the end of both these movies — because the endings are not quite as clear as all that. They are both well worth seeing, and you’ll have the chance to see Eyes Wide Open (which was an Official Selection at Cannes) in New York this month.

 

Another reason to see Eyes Wide Open is Ran Danker, the Israeli pop star who plays Ezri, a homeless youth who has been expelled from his yeshiva for obvious reasons. He has a hit song in Israel called “I am Fire” and I believe it. Yes, he plays the tempter Ezri in Eyes Wide Open, a young man expelled from his yeshiva and cut off by his former fellow student and lover.

 

Ezri, sleeping on the streets, is taken in by Aaron, a 30-something butcher who has a longing in his life that he feels is connected to the fact that he couldn’t devote his life to Torah study. Ezri shows him that this longing is for something else.

 

The beauty of this movie is that it shows both the goodness of the orthodox community and its dark side without judgment. We meet the hooligans of the “Purity Police” who are nothing but Taliban with tzitzit. We feel an increasing hostility, claustrophobia and danger as a community that was once embracing and filled with caring and charity turns on one of its own.

 

For those who aren’t familiar with the intense male bonding in orthodox communities, this movie captures the spiritual intimacy between men that can be the result of this bonding. And who doesn’t long for spiritual intimacy, gay or straight?

 

Unlike the Brokeback template, when Aaron and Ezri’s relationship begins, Aaron is already married with several children. His wife’s pain in this situation is played exquisitely by Ravit Rozen.

 

The relationship between the men does not survive this pressure cooker environment — but the ending is more ambiguous in what becomes of Aaron. And will inspire conversations as to the intent of the filmmaker and its ultimate meaning.

 

In The Brotherhood, Lars is an outsider — a young man whose military career is shut down because as an officer he is accused of sexually harassing his subordinates, he finds himself shut out of the male community he joined. Rootless, and angry, he turns to a neo-Nazi group, where he meets Jimmy. Another interesting parallel between the films is that the ostensibly straight man discovers his passion for the other in the water — Aaron and Ezri at the mikvah, a ritual bath, and Lars and Jimmy in the ocean. Both films capture all the fear, tentativeness, shame, vulnerability and passion that can be so much part of a first male/male relationship.

 

Lars knows he is gay — and joins the neo-Nazis anyway, and tests the limits by talking about Ernst Röhm, the homosexual leader of Hitler’s Brownshirts, and who was murdered by the Nazis in a party purge. He openly courts disaster. This is also true of the couple in Eyes Wide Open, though of course, not by praising Nazis.

 

It would have been easy to make a film about sex between men and Nazis a sexploitation film — just putting the words Nazis and gay sex in the same sentence creates a kinky quiver for some. But just as Tabakman, the director of Eyes Wide Open, treats the orthodox with a sense of balance, Nicolo Donato doesn’t go for cheap titillation here, but uses the subject for a deeper exploration of the fear and desire that exists in masculine camaraderie.

 

It won’t be easy for reviewers to avoid sensationalizing the subject matter of these films, regardless of how hard the directors have worked to make deep statements about human nature, longing for God, longing to be part of something larger than the self, longing for tenderness and vulnerability in a world where expressing that need is dangerous. But it would be a disservice to the filmmakers and their audience.

 

I had an odd sensation towards the end of Brotherhood that was exactly like the feeling I had watching Birth of A Nation for the first time in a theater. Griffith manipulates his audience so that it’s hard not feel like cheering the Klan at the end of the film. And in Brotherhood, while you won’t feel like cheering the Nazis, you will want to see Lars and Jimmy escape the prison they’ve walked into eyes wide open to live happily ever after. The cruel twist that prevents this happy ending will leave a gay audience gasping in a whirlwind of confusing emotions. This is a powerful film.

 

Both films, as foreign productions, move at a speed that may not be comfortable for American audiences more interested in characters rendered in 3D but that have no more reality than the bytes on this screen. And while not a display of modern computer graphics, both of these films are beautifully shot. For those who are willing to experience difficult emotions these are richly rewarding films that should be seen. Eyes Wide Open is about to open for limited showings at two local NYC festivals. No telling yet if Brotherhood will find a U.S. distributor when it plays at the Palm Springs Festival this month. If it does, don’t miss it.

Trailers for both films follow...

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Under the stars...

The final frontier...

The casual inhumanity on display in Elderplan advertising...the commercial as Freudian slip.

Elderplan is a supplemental Medicare plan that runs advertising in NYC — advertising that while fairly easy to follow for those eligible, displays a shocking insensitivity. If you've ever worked as a telemarketer — if you've ever had to take a job cold-calling people or taking 800 number calls — you know how hard it can be, and how employers try to keep you on your headset without a break, regardless of biological, physical or psychological needs. So when the spokesperson on this commercial, after delivering the sell, turns around to see one of the phone reps getting up, her response is "Hey, where are you going?"

And while this might convey to the target that they'll get through, there's no waiting on hold for a rep, it also conveys the messages that this employer — and Elderplan — has little care for the needs of its employees. Which leads one to question how they might really feel about thetheir customers when they're in need. 

I have no idea what the copywriter, the agency or the client thought when they made this spot. But as both a copywriter — and a former telemarketing rep — I am offended. Pardon me, Elderplan, but your Shadow is showing.

The Gay-O-Meter

What is the correlation between homophobia and attraction to men in the same person? This ad for a website in New Zealand makes the case that Max Blumenthal so eloquently makes in his book, Republican Gomorrah.

Sunday Morning Cartoons: A different kind of love story / And give up ho biz?

Two cartoons for the price of one! And they range across the spectrum from grade school first love innocence to a sardonically funny (and NSFW) look a sex addict in denial.

First is A Different Kind of Love Story. I love the sentiment of the Dr. Seuss quote used as the theme of this cartoon: "Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

Unfortunately I feel like this short cartoon  cheats the viewer and then seems to suggest the feelings of one of the characters doesn't matter. But hey, this was made by a school kid for other school kids.  This little animation was an entry into the TVNZ 6 Schools Multimedia Challenge. There are different challenges in the contest, including a prize for animation, and this film was entered in that contest. Students from grades 1 thru 13 can enter. So while I have some problems with the story and the way it plays out, I have only praise for the student who made it, and for TVNZ 6 in New Zealand for helping to foster multimedia creativity in the schools. Who is doing that in the US? And what would happen if some 8th grader made this film here?

Next is an odd animation from Mike Diamond, the New York based comedian who appears on Logo TV's PopLab. His comedy, in this little cartoon and in his essay "Ho No Mo'" deals with the very real issue of sexual compulsion in the gay community with sardonic wit that is both tragic and funny. Diamond's videos can be seen not only on Logo but also on his own youtube channel. Here's "And give up ho biz?"

If this cartoon feels familiar, as in you live this, you might want to ask yourself these 20 questions.

5770: The new year and the power of intention, individual and communal

This is the last calendar day of the Judaic calendar year 5769. Tonight, at sunsets around the world Jews will gather in synagogues and around dinner tables to mark the change and to examine their lives in the hope of change.

Change. A word we heard a lot of in the last year. We have the quadrennial change of presidents (or administrations) this year. And it has been a momentous societal change that has also brought up stiff resistance. The election of an African-American president has lanced the boil of racism in our country, and all the pus is spilling out. The poisonous thinking and beliefs held by many has become a daily part of the public lack of discourse. It took no less a moral force than former president Carter to name the elephant in the room. And today House speaker Pelosi talked about the violence that is born when this kind of talk is not merely condoned, but whipped up, by media clowns whose only responsibility is to their ratings.

Since the vast majority of these people are Christians, their communal review is generally around the secular new year. But I think of the words in the first blessing said every morning during the Shaharit service: “day after day You renew Creation.”

The celebration of the new year could be at any moment in any season. We have the communal celebrations of tradition that come down to us based on seasonal and agricultural reasons. Based on the position of the sun in relation to our orbit around it. The Jewish new year usually falls close to the autumn equinox. The Western secular new year falls close to the winter solstice. Both are moments of transition in our relationship to the light of day. Both remind us that time moves forward, that darkness falls and that light returns, in nature and for our planet at least. But clearly we can chose any time of the day or night, and any date on the calendar to review our lives.

As a (Buddhist) Jew, at this time of year I usually find myself in a synagogue reciting a prayer that takes responsibility — the communal confession of the Ashamnu and the Al Het. The prayer is not: “I lie, I steal…” but “We lie, we steal….” It is said with the understanding that as a community we are responsible for our words and our actions.

In my community, one of the phrases we say is “We are zealots for bad causes.” And we are all guilty of this at times.

This is certainly a time when the entire country would do well to do some self-examination.  Here though is the rub. True zealots don’t do this kind of self-examination. And this is the trap Jay Michaelson has fallen into in his recent essay in the Forward on losing his love for Israel.

Jay says that it is “exhausting to maintain my ambivalence.”  Zealots don’t face this kind of exhaustion. Their monomaniacal dedication to their cause energizes them around a single “truth.” But because Jay sees the multiple truths, and the insane zealots on the Israeli side, he loses his resolve.

I understand completely. But this is what happened to Hamlet. When faced with the opportunity to act, his doubts caused him to lose his resolve. And instead of avenging his father and killing his uncle cleanly, everyone ends up dead. As Arjuna stand before his cousins about to go to war with them, and has his doubts, understanding the full horror and moral ambiguity of the situation, Krishna schools him on taking action whole-heartedly.

I am not pretending that I am able to do this. I just recognize the peril of ambivalence.

I have seen how in our support for good causes we have come to mirror the faults of those we oppose. You can see this in Keith Olbermann, who is as guilty of simplification and manipulation of the facts as many on the right, he just happens to be on the side I agree with — I still find him annoying. And more tragically, we can see it in the way Israel betrays it's ideals by slowly becoming what it was founded in reaction against. But at the same time, to come back to the subject of the president and the racism spilling out across America, this is where I lose my patience with Obama. So it looks like he just stands there and takes the punches while the wing-nut right goes to town. He talks of bipartisanship in a city where one party has the knives out for him. It isn’t easy to do that. It is insanely reasonable (there’s a phrase for you). It’s, pardon the expression, Christian. 

It’s how he was able to go the Islamic nations and speak to their issues in ways anyone rarely speaks out (or can in their societies without fear of imprisonment or worse). And how he was able to tell Israel off on the subject of the settlements.

It’s how he was able to go to the black churches and say he supports lgbt rights while at the same time pushing back on the lgbt community, and pushing our buttons by embracing so-called religious figures we see as divisive if not simply outright hateful.

The thing that seems to give Obama his strength is just his ability to hold the tensions and see the ambiguities. He isn’t ambivalent in the face of these things. Psychologist Arnold Mindell has made a career of studying the ability to stand in this position and gain strength from it. He calls it Worldwork.

It’s a way of finding strength in admitting and opening to the individual and community failures, and committing listening deeply to the other. Listening to what’s under some of the insane words: the fears that aren’t spoken because they are more threatening, and speaking to them.

I won’t say Obama is a master of this at all. He enrages me much of the time, and disappoints me. And I worry that his insanely reasonable attitude will lose the next election. But at the same time, I have to admire his unwavering commitment to staying open. He said it in his recent speech to Congress when he offered to work with others who were willing to constructively work together even it meant compromise and conflict. He doesn’t shy from that. But he did say that he would move ahead without them if they weren’t willing to do the work.

He is the adult in the room. I don’t know what his spiritual path is. He spent time in a madrasah in Indonesia. He joined a church in Chicago. Like me, he may well be a boundary crosser. And I don’t know what his process of review and self-examination is. What I do know is that now is the time we in my traditional faith community spends in examination of ourselves as a community and individuals.  

I don’t have all the answers. I don’t have many of them. But I won’t let my misgivings over the real problems in Israel let me waver in my defense of it in the face of insane zealotry — both from within and without. Both against the haredi attacking the lgbt community and the surrounding countries attacking Israel’s right to exist. 

And in the meantime, I’ll spend the next ten days doing some of the spiritual work of the season, examining my intention, words and actions. But I have found the best season to do this work is always now. As the 10^th step of the 12 step tradition suggests: continue to take personal inventory, and when wrong, promptly admit it.

I'm sure I've offended many with this. Well, that assumes many have read this, and have even read this far, and I know better. This is part of my own writing out of my internal struggle with these issues, in the hope that I can act with equanimity if not zealous certainty. I hope this challenges you to do your work. I welcome your comments, and of course...

May you all have a new year that is both sweet and free of high fructose corn syrup.  

Toronto Film Festival, Queer Israel, Palestinian Rights and Disordered Thinking

First an excerpt from an article by Hannah Brown in the Jerusalem Post about the controversy in Toronto with film maker John Greyson boycotting the festival there:

"...there has been a ridiculous flap over the Toronto festival's decision to feature a cinematic tribute to Tel Aviv in honor of that city's centennial, including films such as Assi Dayan's Life According to Agfa. Canadian director John Greyson chose to boycott the festival, withdrawing his 15-minute documentary about a festival for gays in Sarajevo. Greyson and others who support the boycott gave all the usual reasons, accusing Israel of apartheid and citing the war in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank. If I had a hundred pages, I wouldn't have space to exhaust the ironies of anyone choosing to boycott a festival because he feels that showing such films as Assi Dayan's almost indescribably negative and bleak portrayal of Israel provides sparkling public relations for the country. This movie depicts Israelis as so deeply racist and irreparably corrupt, if Theodore Herzl could have seen into the future and caught a screening of it, he would have converted to Buddhism and retired to the Himalayas. Abused wives, exploited prostitutes, noble Palestinian mechanics and their lazy-slob Jewish bosses, and a selfish womanizer who trashes the lives of everyone around him are just a few of the characters featured in the other films planned for the tribute, including Danny Lerner's Kirot, Keren Yedaya's Jaffa, and Uri Zohar's Big Eyes. Eytan Fox's The Bubble is a thoughtful and, I think, generally underrated film about the culture clash that takes place when a gay Palestinian comes to live in one of Tel Aviv's chic, bohemian neighborhoods. However, anyone who would call The Bubble pro-Israeli propaganda, when it focuses on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and has a hero who falls in love with a Palestinian, is so absurd as to defy any logic. It's quite possible that there is no other city in the world where mainstream (and often government-supported) filmmakers have been so staunchly and relentlessly critical of their government.

Now I am a big fan of Greyson's film Lilies, one of most interesting queer films ever made. But I find his thinking on this issue to be disordered. I am no apologist for the injustices in Israel. There are those who will point to the real danger to their lives that queer people face in the Islamic societies that surround Israel, and while this is true, you can't make grey while by comparing it to black. And Israeli society is grey to say the least. But it ain't black. As I've said before, I urge Mr. Greyson to show Lilies anywhere in the Palestinian territory. Or Egypt. Or Syria.

Meanwhile, the homoeroticism that seethes under the relationships between men in the orthodox world break through to the surface in a film that premiered in Cannes last spring, Eyes Wide Open. Will it make it to NYC? Has it found a distributor? Inquiring minds want to know. Here's a clip:

Yes, a film like this, despite the historically accurate cultural acceptance of homoerotic relations (though with an age difference that would not be accepted in the West) is something else I don't think we'll see coming out of Syria, Iran, Iraq or Saudi Arabia anytime soon, must less the Palestinian territory. The injustices suffered by Palestinians are real. The inequity in Israeli society, the growing religious intolerance and the rifts between the Jews of different cultures who've settled there make for a pressure cooker I can't imagine. I don't see how Mr. Greyson has added any light to the situation. Only heat. And that's the last thing anyone in the Middle East needs. Just my opinion.

Fundamentalists see violence as acceptable: Pinchas is the template for Haredi response

Voz Is Neias, the website of the Orthodox Jewish Community, reports today that youngsters putting up posters in Jerusalem to condemn the deadly shooting spree in a Tel Aviv gay youth center last week were attacked by haredim in Mea She'arim.

The comments in response to the report range from thoughtful to hateful with everything in between, as responses to hot button issues on a blog usually are. But make for interesting reading into the minds of a community (if a rather skewed view that can't be called representative.)

Cigar Smoke Bukakke

What were they thinking?????

Well, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...just not this time.

Democracy, Corporate Media and the death of Newspapers...

This quote, from David Mitchell's brilliant novel, Cloud Atlas:

The conflict between corporations and activists is that of narcolepsy versus remembrance. The corporations have money, power and influence. Our sole weapon is public outrage. Outrage blocked the Yuccan Dam, ousted Nixon, and in part, terminated the monstrosities in Vietnam. But outrage is unwieldy to manufacture and handle. First, you need scrutiny; second, widespread public awareness; only when this reaches a critical mass does public outrage explode into being. Any stage may be sabotaged. The world's [corporations] can fight scrutiny by burying truth in committees, dullness and misinformation, or by intimidating the scrutinizers. They can extinguish awareness by dumbing down education, owning TV stations, paying "guest fees" to leader writers, or just buying the media up. The media...is where democracies conduct their civil wars.

And after the last weeks in Iran, electronically via internet and mobile communications as well. And we have seen how corporations that offer internet and mobile services can sell out to repressive governments to further their own interests.