Walk on Water and
My Own Private Idaho DVD
Gay Israeli director Eytan Fox's independent film Walk on Water, opening this Friday at the Music Box, is the best movie I've seen so far this year. Though the competition hasn't exactly been stellar, this being the time of year Hollywood dumps their toxic waste movies into theatres, the film's so good, works on so many levels and raises such fascinating issues, that releasing this little miracle of a movie now while the big guns are gearing up for blockbuster season will hopefully help it gain the attention it deserves. Don't be surprised if this terrific multi-layered character study/thriller ends up on my Top Ten list come next January.
Walk on Water stars Lior Ashkenazi as Eyal, a hit man for the Mossad, the secretive Israeli intelligence agency, who is charged with tracking down an elderly fugitive Nazi. Eyal, who we have seen assassinate a target with silken ease in the film's opening moments, is clearly frustrated at what he considers a brush-off assignment and demands of his superior, Menachem ( Gideon Shemer ) , 'Why now go get the aging Nazi?' Menachem calmly replies, 'I want to get him before God does' and reluctantly Eyal accepts the challenge.
The Nazi's grandson Axel ( Knut Berger ) is visiting Israel to see his sister Pia ( Caroline Peters ) , who's studying at a Kibbutz, and hoping to convince her to return home to Germany to celebrate their father's birthday. Eyal has been set up to pose as a tour guide for Axel but from the moment that the tense, by-the-book Eyal picks him up, it's clear that this is not a match made in Heaven. 'Welcome to Israel,' Eyal comments on the drive back from the airport, 'You missed today's bomb.' But to his irritation, Axel only seems interested in replacing Eyal's Bruce Springsteen CD playing in the car with his own of female singers. Eyal listens with repressed contempt and is also just barely polite when he meets Pia.
As he drives his charge around to various landmarks, however, Axel's youthful, reflective optimism begins to have an effect on Eyal—especially on the day that he and Axel strip down, cover themselves in mud and float in the salty Dead Sea for hours. But during an open air shower afterwards typical straight guy banter about male genitalia sends up a warning flare for Eyal about Axel. Sure enough, when Eyal accompanies Pia and Axel to a nightclub, discovers that it's a gay bar and sees Axel not only flirting with a man, but a Palestinian, his homophobia and racism are too much and he leaves. But Menachem insists he remain on the case and when Eyal returns the film gets even MORE complex. The movie, a fascinating character study up to this point, then shifts into high gear, adding in some remarkable, dramatic twists, highlighted by a climax at the father's birthday party in Germany.
Fox and screenwriter Gal Uchovsky ( his real-life lover ) add one layer after another to this intelligent, heartfelt study of gay vs. straight, Jew vs. German, Jew vs. Arab, young vs. old, family loyalty vs. personal integrity, but the film never seems confusing ( even as it switches between Hebrew, German and English! ) and doesn't pander with simple solutions.
Some of the set ups are admittedly a bit clichéd ( one scene involving Neo-Nazi's vs. butch drag queens in particular ) and the ending might seem a tad airy fairy. But the movie earns many bonus points for tackling such an array of tough issues in the first place and for having the smarts to never lecture and by never leaving the thriller aspect far behind. Fox also draws intricate performances out of his leads, especially Ashkenazi as Eyal, who to no one's surprise who sees the evidence here, is Israel's biggest male box office star. www.musicboxtheatre.com
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The wait is finally over. Gus Van Sant's 1991 masterpiece of queer cinema, My Own Private Idaho, has finally arrived on DVD. Lucky for fans of the film, the haunting tale of two street hustlers in Portland, this Special Edition, director-approved two-disc set comes from the Criterion Collection. The persnickety care that Criterion puts into their DVD releases seems to me the equivalent of the way certain record albums used to be packaged. Sitting with the lyric sheet, pouring over the album credits and photos, and reading the liner notes was almost as important as the music itself and such is the case with the best of Criterion's releases.
Criterion also understands the significance of not only recreating as closely as possible the look and sound of a film's original theatrical release ( which they've done superbly here—highlighting Van Sant's color palette for the film, which favors orange and brown ) but also the enticement of not just the usual extra stuff like deleted scenes, director and crew commentaries and bios, but beautiful, extensive booklets like the one they've included for Idaho. A highlight of the booklet is the interview that Lance Loud did with Gus Van Sant for Interview magazine.
The second disc, naturally, is going to draw a lot of attention from fans of queer cinema. It features a fascinating, newly recorded audio conversation ( that should have been videoed ) between Van Sant and Far From Heaven director Todd Haynes, a separate audio track with Tarnation director Jonathan Caouette, and a recently done video reminiscence between producer Laurie Parker and Rain Phoenix ( who hung around the set watching brother River give his greatest performance and later starred in Van Sant's lesbian-themed follow up to Idaho, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues ) . Van Sant's career has been rather hit and miss and Idaho remains his best film, which this highly recommended release so vividly illustrates.
www.criterioncollection.com
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Local Screenings: Grass Ceiling is a documentary that tracks four professional soccer players battling stereotypes to compete in the world's first professional women's soccer league. It's just one of the over 100 films being screened at the Claudia Cassidy Theater inside the Cultural Center as part of the 24th annual Women in the Director's Chair Festival. The fest runs Wednesday, March 16-Sunday, March 20 and Grass Ceiling screens Saturday the 19th at 3 p.m. Complete schedule at www.widc.org