Boys, Bombs and the Bubble

We moan, cry and whine about love and all its idiosyncrasies. The impossibilities, the difficulties, the tragedies.


Forbidden Love
And yet I doubt anything compares to something like this. Just put yourself in someone else's shoes - you're an army reservist, fulfilling your duties at the border checkpoint with a hostile nation. Your lover is a desperately closeted man, a man of a different race and religion - with his people at odds with yours, with a temporary ceasefire at best always ready to explode at the least provocation.

Then you'll have the Bubble. Have been a fan of Eytan Fox's work since the romantic Yossi and Yagger and even the provocative Walk on Water. Homosexuality in the Israeli army and the ongoing political strife within the fractious Middle-East seem to be recurrent themes in a number of his films.


I love love Tel Aviv!
Beg, hound or blackmail your DVD pirates ( or else there's always P2P :P ) since there's no chance in hell this movie is going to make it to our screens - but make sure you catch this thought-provoking drama on the relationship between a brooding Israeli reserve soldier who falls in love with an intense Palestinian man.

Seriously. Just imagine the horrors of our conservative censorship board when they realize it's a movie about a Jew falling for a Muslim - and both guys! Of course if left to our scissor-happy censors, we would have to be content with religious-based dramas and 1950s Leave it to Beaver reruns.

But I digress. Where was I again?

During one of his duties at the border checkpoint, our serious-minded Israeli protagonist Noam first makes the acquaintance of the dark, handsome Palestinian Ashraf in a shocking opening prologue, striking unexpected sparks - that later leads to Ashraf being welcomed into the comfortable fold of his progressive-minded friends, the tolerant, optimistic Lulu and the hip, flamboyant Yali. Life in the posh, vibrant Tel Aviv suburb with its trendy cafes, hip clubs and raves couldn't be more different from the violent sociopolitical realities of the moment, though these kids enconsced in their bubble would prefer it so.

Despite some initial resistance, Ashraf's appearance into their daily lives heralds an unwelcome change as the grim reality of the neverending violence and bloodshed that surrounds them finally intrudes upon their lives, making little pricks into their previously sheltered bubble.



Now doesn't that make all the silly fights we all have almost inconsequential?