Uriel Torten | שעשני כרצונו (She'asani Kirtzono) (By His Will) / 2021

the sacred embraces the profane

by Douglas Messerli 

Uriel Torten (screenwriter and director) שעשני כרצונו (She'asani Kirtzono) (By His Will) / 2021 [16 minutes]

Teenager Elisha (Ido Tako) is being raised in a traditional Jewish religious institution and feels not only the regular teenage angst for the separateness of his life, but is simultaneously beginning to feel an attraction to men. This truly open-minded and sympathetic film—which attempts to present the important pulls of both popular culture and religious tradition—with him standing outside of a

door wherein people is age ae celebrating a rather wild party. The girls who arrive recognize almost immediately that he the host’s friend, an invite him in, but in the very act he displays his wide-eyed wonderment at the exciting dancing and sexual activity going on around him, and the necessity of removing of kippa.

      And in the very next frames we observe him davening to his religious studies, with altering frames of his dressing for the party. We recognize almost immediately, according, that this young man is being tortured by his attempt to live in both worlds, those of his peers outside of school, and those within his religious institution.

       Even observing his best friend Daniel (Nir Magen) in the religious setting—someone to whom he’s clearly attracted and with him he has obviously been regularly meeting—sends him running from the room. As he attempts to explain it to is friend: “I don’t know what to do. I have no control over things that happen to me. It’s as if my life is just part of someone else’s grand plan.”

      Daniel simply cannot comprehend what Elisha is talking about. Is it part God’s plan he’s talking about. But Elisha cannot explain it, knowing that the feelings he’s having are not, according to his religious beliefs, what God would plan for him. That bifurcation of the holy and his sensual world feelings his mind and body are telling him about himself are at the center of this short film, which shows the teenage attempting to match up “His will” or God’s will with his own.

        Even his parents have recognized that his behavior recently has been different, and in the attempt to be understanding and loving attempt to understand what it is their son is feeling. Daniel also attempts to call him, but it is unclear whether he know what is truly at the heart of his friend’s problem, although we do see Elisha kissing him on the lips after his previous conversation with at the school. And even the Rabbi notices that his excellent student is now distracted. Although Rabbi attempts to discuss the problems he’s been noticing, and like Elisha’s father is kind in his attempts to comprehend the change in behavior, he also declares it unacceptable.

      It is soon established that he has come very close to having sex with another boy at the part, Idan (Itay Koren), who is frustrated by Elisha’s confused feeling which makes it even more difficult for Elisha to determine whether to follow his religious beliefs or his secular desires.

       Returning from the party Elisha explains his lack of wearing a kippa was that he met up “someone there, but things with her didn’t go as I wanted.” He is finally able to admit to his father that it appears that God has a grand plan for him and that he himself as no part in it. But the father’s answer that “Man plans and God laughs” is surely not what the frightened boy wants to hear to heal the sense of being pulled apart in two directions.

        “It wasn’t a her,” he admits. “It was a him.” His father hugs him close in painful acceptance.

      Back at school, Elisha meets up again with his friend Daniel, the two sitting together hoping to find a way back to their friendship. Daniel puts out an open hand, to which, at first, Elisha closes his own into a fist before finally putting his own hand into that of his friend. Perhaps there is a way to bring his sexual desires and his religious training together.

 

Los Angeles, June 9, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (June 2024).