MovieChat Forums > Einayim Pekukhoth (2009) Discussion > Adultery?

Adultery?

posted 14 years ago by Frioli
11 replies | jump to latest

For me, this is a film about adultery and moral choices we have to make in our life.
There is this guy who leads a routine life with his wife and kids. He also seems to have a sort of middle-age crisis (death of the father etc) Then he suddenly meets a handsome 18-year old creature and has tremendous desire for him.
He cheats his wife, but the community he lives in makes him to stop it. In the end of the film he symbolically washes his sins off.

I'm just wondering, what would change if the director replaced the 18-year old guy with an 18-year old girl? Would we feel the same sympathy towards the main character who "was dead before, and only now feels living"?

What's the moral difference between cheating your wife with a man or with a woman? In today's emancipated western world, where every other celebrity claims to be bisexual, I don't really see a big difference.

[–] evelyons 14 years ago

You miss the point. This movie is not just about adultery, it is about trying to reconcile being gay with Orthodox Judaism. I think it was pretty clear this is not the first time Aaron had these feelings, probably not the first time he acted on them. He desperately tried to suppress them, but was living in a cold and distant marriage. Ezri made him feel alive. Sadly for them both, their community could not tolerate even the implication of this, and shunned Ezri and drove Aaron to suicide. He wasn't "washing himself" pure at the end, he killed himself. He never came up out of the water!

THis was a sad and poignant movie. Very skillfully done, honest and direct without being overblown.

[–] yoyoanna 14 years ago

why do you think it wasn't the first time Aaron acted on his feelings?

Hide the rum!

[–] vinnyhh 14 years ago

There is no difference in cheating gay. Either girl or boy, it's cheating and I disprove of it.

Yet for what makes this movie's twist, it could be interpreted that this man has been living a lie and shortly dares to explore his true feelings. Maybe he loves his wife genuinely and it would be as if he cheated with another girl (he is bisexual). But by saying "I'm alive" I understand it as that he hasn't been truely happy before. He has been living in a love-less marriage. He never came to terms with his sexuality before... understandable for the community he lives in. Compare to this David and Jonathan's story in the Bible/Torah where David says "Your love for me was wonderful, better than the love of women".

Men who naturally fall in love with members of their same-sex and live in traditional societies often neglect and suppress their feelings. Also, society oppresses them to conform. Being true to what God made oneself, these men should not marry a women in the first place.

[–] shipperly-groom 13 years ago

"Being true to what God made oneself, these men should not marry a women in the first place."

But his faith doesn't see it that way - it regards homosexual desire as at best something God afflicts people with to test them, at worst something just plain evil that 'infects' them. In the minds of the ultra-orthodox, you might as well say paedophiles should be true to what God made them.

Beyond the very strong social pressure to marry in this sort of community, Aaron primarily sees it as a religious and spiritual necessity. The way he has learned to live with his sexuality as a committed Hassidic Jew is to tell himself that life is not about 'enjoyment', it is about constantly metaphorically 'scourging' yourself. Real virtue and fulfilment, he believes, only come through a life of 'work and prayer'. He is convinced that like all humanity it his duty to comply with God's 'plan' - marriage & family - and that his natural disinclination to have sexual relations with a woman doesn't exempt him from that requirement. Embracing the pain of self denial is what God demands, accepting the burden of a joyless marriage while discharging his role as a 'good' husband and father is his duty. But getting close to this young man shakes that way of rationalising his life, to the point he realises this way of seeing things is not tenable.

[–] kolnoaMograbi 12 years ago

vinnyHH, they don't have a choice, gay or straight. You saw what happened to the Sarah character: She too was wrenched away from her true love and forced to marry another. In that world, marriages are arranged. By a certain stage, if you haven't begun dating, you're suspect. Of course the main suspicion is that you're gay, but whatever the suspicion, you'd be labeled "Something's Wrong", and even more pressure would be applied to get you hitched. Not only that, you'd be placing your younger siblings in jeopardy of themselves finding a marriage partner. It's all based on subtle or not-so-subtle psychological blackmail. Moreover, appearances are everything in that community; each individual's path and purpose are clearly marked, and s/he is expected to conform to expectations. So a straight person can be just as trapped in hizzer marriage (as Sarah will be) as a gay person. That's what the film is trying to show us.

[–] dwswear 14 years ago

Yes, adultery is an aspect of the film, but I don't think that is the main focus. I think the focus is one man grappling with the contradiction between his inner feelings and his faith and commitment to his family.

I agree that there is no 'moral' (depending on how one defines the term) difference concerning the gender of someone you cheat with. However, for this specific film, I think indeed we would feel differently if it were a girl Aaron had a relationship with, because it would shift the whole paradigm and our set of beliefs and expectations about the relationship. In that scenario, it would ONLY be about adultery.

With another man, it becomes about sexuality (and perhaps sexual identity).

Personally, my sympathy for Aaron was about the difficulty of his inner conflict between his feelings and his faith and family. That doesn't mean that cheating on his wife was alright. But we all know how complicated and fallible human beings are. For me, the 'immorality' would have been to continue with the status-quo. But once he was finally confronted to make a decision from various quarters he made it.

[–] steve5312 13 years ago

Actually, I'm not sure it WOULD have been that different had it been a woman who was the "temptress". Adultery is adultery regardless of the gender, although I admit it does give it more punch if it's homosexual.

To me the film was more about a claustrophobic situation (both in terms of the social and religious oversight as well as the location) that Aaron finds himself in, bored with his life, and finding invigoration in a new partner before it's cruelly wrenched away. It was interesting to see the "spark" played out in terms of a male lover to compound the religious issue, but I do think the film could have worked as well with a female lover.

[–] jaroslaw99 13 years ago

To Frioli - all the answers here by Evelyons/VinnyHH etc. are good, but I want to add something - well, it has already been said implicitly but I'll say it explicitly. If Aaron had cheated with a girl, well, he already has a wife at home, so he then he would just be greedy and lustful. But with Ezri, I think he truly cared for him and (already stated) Aaron is not 'alive' in his marriage. In the male/male relationship, he is addressing denied and repressed issues, which is very different than plain adultery with another female.

[–] Frioli 12 years ago

Sorry, jaroslaw99, I don't get it. What do you mean by "he already has a wife at home"? You are taking it on an abstract gender level, while I maintain my opinion, that it is a PERSON, not a GENDER that you fall in love with.

[–] jaroslaw99 12 years ago

If homosexuality, especially in a religious country like Israel, wasn't such a loaded topic, I might agree with some of what you're saying Frioli. But it comes with such baggage.... your idea that one falls in love with a person not a gender is in complete contradiction to WHAT IS. Obviously society doesn't allow that, which is why there is such pressure to conform to traditional gender roles. Most, not all, are attracted to the GENDER of their "choice" only after do they fall in love with that person. I LIKE girls and have even been close to them but my deepest feelings are for another guy.

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]