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*Spoilers* Madonna-whore . Tchelet's background? Mike's Place?


I regarded the opening scene (screen filled with breast) and the subsequent story as a play in which the protagonist wrestles with the Madonna-whore complex. But (forgive me for this) for a Jewish man, maybe, the whores (love objects) are shikses. I will add that to me, Jewish women are beautiful, especially the ones in Diaspora, in Israel, and in the Old Country (Brooklyn).

I liked how the director meshed M-W complex that with the theme of falling in love with a prostitute. Like so many men, he saw his mother in Sasha, but in an updated version. These are familiar themes, but well executed here.

Is Tchelet Semel a Jewish woman born to Soviet immigrants? I thought that she and Oren Rehany were amazing. I hope that more of their acting will be in films that come to the US.

She was seductive, playful, hopeful and fatalistic. She was not hard-shelled but multi-layered in her defenses. And Tchelet was pretty.

Oren gave life to this film from the first moment we meet him in the bathroom with a magazine for a friend. He appeared to go through transformations without ever closing or opening doors all the way. This was good writing, but Rehany made it all so smooth. You don't notice that he and Semel are acting.

From reading some interview with Eitan Gorlin, it seems that he based his story in part on having worked at the real Mike's Place in Jerusalem. I had no idea. Are there restrictions on bars in Jerusalem? Hours? Type of drink? New City only? Closed on Shabbat?

I didn't like everything about this movie, but it has lingered in my mind for months. My heart wins.

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