QFest: Wednesday

By Mister Curie

Madame Curie is being an absolute saint this evening and taking care of Le Petite Curie so that I can attend the following movie tonight:

Eyes Wide Open


Much to the shock of their tightly-knit, ultra-Orthodox community in Jerusalem, a married butcher with four children falls in love with a twenty-something young man in this stunningly moving Israeli film.
Powerful and quietly humane, Eyes Wide Open,, Haim Tabakman's, debut feature is an extraordinary portrait of forbidden love. Aaron (Zohar Strauss) leads a quiet life. Each day he goes from his tidy apartment, where he lives with his four children and his wife Rivka, to work at his butcher-shop. After work, Aaron goes to his synagogue to pray. Aaron is a tzaddik, a righteous man, and when Ezri (Ran Danker), a handsome young man arrives at his shop during a rainstorm looking for shelter, he gives it. But something more happens as sexual desire develops between the two men. Ezri wants to kiss Aaron, but Aaron tells Ezri that it's a challenge for them to pray about. Ezri takes Aaron to a spring outside the city where their desire bubbles to the surface. As their gay love is consummated, the marital love between Aaron and Rivka becomes troubled. Insightful and almost delicate in its storytelling, Eyes Wide Open, is a essential film in the cannon of queer filmmaking. With not an extra word, frame or movement, director Haim Tabakman and screenwriter Merav Doster deserve kudos for this gorgeously wrenching film.

Review to follow . . .