What happens if you're a married man with children in an ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem and you fall in love and lust with a beautiful young man? A very very different film that probably will shake your beliefs.Aaron leads a very quiet life. Each day he heads from his tidy apartment where he lives with his four children and his wife Rivka to his butcher-shop to his synagogue to pray. His father recently passed away and now he has to take care of it. Enter Ezri, a 20 something guy who is looking for shelter in Aaron's shop on a rainy day. We soon find out that Ezri has come to the town to look up for an ex-boyfriend. As the days pass Ezri and Aaron develop a relationship. 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, and desire bubbles to the surface between the two men. As their gay love is consummated, the love between Aaron and Rivka becomes troubled. This doesn't remain hidden and soon the close knit community. Aaron is quickly ostracized within the Orthodox community. Confronted by Rabbi, Aaron declares he was dead before meeting Ezri. We see how quickly social control turns violent and ugly in the Orthodox community when Ezri is forced to leave and Aaron has to deal with everything on his own.
This is a powerfully moving and a humane Jewish film that portrays forbidden love in an orthodox Jewish community. The main actors have done their part very well. The beauty of the film is that it doesn't glorify either gay experience or orthodox Jewish life and yet it coolly shows the beauties of both. You can see the closeness and security of the life. Aaron's physical pleasures with Ezri are equally simple, and intense, with a passion lacking in his ritual under-the-sheets couplings with his wife.
Definitely a worth watch. (6/10)
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