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I saw Trembling Before G-d last night. Briefly, it is a documentary dealing with the lives of gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews. Director Sandi Simcha Dubowski travels across America, to Israel and to London, allowing his various fascinating subjects to tell their own stories about how they have attempted to integrate their sexuality with deep religious feelings of a strain that in no uncertain terms excludes them.
If Orthodox Jewry believes that the Torah is the sacred, complete and direct word of the Lord (I believe I've read in the Haggadah that it was written in letters of black fire upon pages of white fire), then to be Orthodox one must theoretically follow all of the laws of sexual conduct laid down in Leviticus. But there are numerous homosexual Lubbovitzers, Chassids, and Conservative Orthodoxers that feel a need to stay in a community that for the most part violently rejects them. The subjects of the film have taken various approaches to the issue: bitter rejection, swings between self-rejection and dangerous abandon, and simply doing their best to keep their two lives seperate.
It's a wonderful work. Of course the stories told are all compelling. How couldn't they be, considering the subject? The subjects are intercut in ways that illuminate one another surprisingly. Especially affecting were the interviews and footage of Rabbis discussing their views of the Law and the questions in front of them. Certainly there is some ignorance and intolerance on display. One of the men interviewed, identified as David, tells stories about consulting a Rabbi with Kabbalistic (I'll use the filmmakers' spelling, thanks very much) tendacies who advises him to eat figs and recite psalms to "cure" his condition. Shlomo Ashkinazy, an Orthodox therapist, tells a story of speaking with a famous charismatic Rabbi in Israel. The Rabbi told him firmly that Leviticus forbids anal sex. Ashkinazy replied that he knows that, and that he doesn't do that with his partner. The Rabbi was confused, and Ashkinazy went on to enlighten him as to the other possible permutations of gay sex. This came as a bit of a surprise to the Rabbi, and threw somewhat of a different light on the situation.
Most of the Rabbis interviewed display what might be termed an intensely compassionate intolerance. They care deeply (one goes so far as to say "I will hold their hand--metaphorically"), but the Torah is the Torah. Dubowski does not try to answer the questions raised by this conflict, which is one of the reasons it is so effective. He instead lets us into the lives and minds of his subjects and steps back.
As far as film goes, its a shot-on-handheld documentary for the most part. Most of the second-unit stuff is well-shot, especially the Yeshiva scenes. Archival footage is well-used, especially the opening footage of hate-spewing Orthodox men in sackcloth protesting that opens the film. The only real gripe I have are the overbearingly symbolic sillhouette shots between some of the interviews of Jews being Orthodox--Menorah lighting, praying and bobbing up and down, kissing the kids good-night. The "We're gay Jews, so we have to hide--sillhouettes, get it?" felt a bit clumsy, and the implied sight-gags--Orthodox men bobbing up and down in unison, strappin' each other up for prayin'--seemed to me to be in bad taste. Perhaps they weren't intentional, but if they weren't, some one should have caught it. Or maybe my mind is on permanent gutter-vacation. The music was by John Zorn, and excellently selected. |
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