FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
THE HOLY LAND
Over news footage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, a female voice reveals, “Men in the
Middle East are primitive and stupid.” The voice belongs to the striking Russian
immigrant Sasha (Semel), a hardened whore. At the strip bar The Love Boat, she meets Mendy (Rehany), a
horny 20-year-old rabbinical student following in his father’s footsteps, who is instantly
smitten with her. To get closer to Sasha, he becomes a bartender at Mike’s Place, her
hangout. But after an incendiary and fast-paced beginning, this clichéd drama loses
narrative coherence and becomes a long and tepid courtship, as it is more than obvious
that Sasha is merely biding time with Mendy until something better comes along. Where
there’s no spark, there’s no fire. She puts him down, and he still hopes, evidence to the
contrary, that she’ll fall in love with him. Oddly, for a bar set in contemporary Jerusalem,
there are only a few customers and the same ones at that. The forced joviality of the bar’s
patrons and the overacting by Mendy’s mentor and boss Mike (Stein) stick out like a sore thumb.
Then there is a murky subplot involving the dealings between Mike and an Arab, which
leads to an ending that feels arbitrary. Only the on-location scenes of Jerusalem and the
countryside enliven the story. With its threadbare sets and without a fully fleshed-out
script, this is the indie equivalent of an Off-Off-Broadway production. KT
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