"I
hope the Jews and Arabs kill each other until there is
nobody left" is the opening line in The Holy
Land,
a Faustian coming-of-age story set amid the backdrop of
militant Israelis and Palestinians, all of whom have accepted
a Faustian view of their lives. The film centers on Menachem "Mendy" Weinbaum
(played by Oren Rehany), a nerdy yeshiva student in his
late teens or early twenties whose need for intimate companionship
and sex interferes with his responsibility to concentrate
on his studies. When his rabbi catches him reading Hermann
Hesse's Siddharta, he provides extraordinary advice: Go
to another city, find a harlot, and return ready for more
spiritual enlightenment. But Mendy, who is studying to
be a rabbi within a family that has little interest in
the real world, cannot return after just one experience.
He goes to Tel Aviv and locates a strip club called The
Love Boat, where he meets nineteen-year-old Sasha (played
by Tchelet Semel), a prostitute who earlier muttered the
beginning quote while watching carnage on newsreel footage.
Although Mendy asks Sasha friendly questions to get better
acquainted, she prefers a more direct approach to sex,
so she takes him to a private room, where he ejaculates
soon after she removes his pants. The following evening,
he returns to the same club to talk with Sasha, but Mike
(played by Saul Stein) arrives, takes Sasha away from him
for a while, then returns to get acquainted. Mike, who
operates a bar in Jerusalem named Mike's Place, invites
Mendy to visit on the next evening so that he can get better
acquainted with Sasha, who on her free night frequents
the bar, which turns out to be reminiscent of the bar in
Star Wars (1977), where Israelis and Palestinians socialize
amicably together, including an American Jew nicknamed "The
Exterminator" (played by Arie Moskuna) and a Palestinian
Razi (played by Albert Illuz). Clearly, Mendy wants to
fall in love with Sasha. A Russian (but not a Jew) whose
passport was seized by the owner of the strip club, she
is a sex slave with no apparent ambition to lead a normal
life, but she accepts Mendy's friendship and goes on occasional
excursions with him in the daytime. Mike also befriends
Mendy, hiring him as a bartender and allowing him to crash
at his apartment. Thanks to Mike and his friends, Mendy
walks into Palestinian neighborhoods, meets Israeli exponents
of Greater Israel, and learns to drink booze and smoke
pot. Eventually Sasha does fall in love with Mendy, and
the two fantasize about moving to the United States together.
Sasha admits that she has a relative in Florida but needs
an American passport. Meanwhile, the yeshiva rabbi visits
Mendy at Mike's Place, telling him that if he does not
return to his studies in a week, he will notify his parents
of his misconduct. When Sasha returns from Tel Aviv with
a passport one afternoon, Mendy notices that her real name
is not Sasha; inexplicably, he gets upset that she has
been dishonest, and accuses her of sleeping with a lot
of men to get the passport. Tired from her most recent
activities, a taped porn video session and sex with "The
Exterminator," she responds by telling Mendy to return
to his family. After Mendy leaves, she sobs, but in the
final scene one of the tragic Faustian visions prevails,
reminding filmviewers that one cannot count on living a
normal life in the Holy Land today. Indeed, director Eitan
Gorlin draws on his own personal experiences in making
the film. As a postscript, the bar called Mike's Place
in the film was the scene of a terrorist attack shortly
before the film premiered. MH
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