Saleh Saadi | Borekas / 2020

the reconciliation

by Douglas Messerli

 

Saleh Saadi (screenwriter and director) Borekas / 2020 [15 minutes]

 

A young son (Anan Abu-Jaber) has returned home for a visit in Palestine from where he now lives in Munich. The father (Yussuf Abu-Warda), a taxicab driver, is insistent on driving his son to the airport. On the way they stop for borekas (a puff pastry stuffed with cheese or potatoes) and croissants.

     But when they return to the car, it won’t start. The son is furious, claiming that he’ll call a taxi since he can’t dare be late and they always delay him at the airport. But his father reassures him he’ll call a mechanic friend who will immediately fix it.

 

     So begins what might appear to be a movie of father/son confrontation. As the reviewer from Film Carnage, writing simply as Rebecca, nicely puts it:

 

“Borekas hits upon a theme that any, and probably every, queer person can relate to, the struggle to come out. More specifically, worrying so much about what someone might think, or whether it will ruin your relationship, that it starts to create a distance on its own. How having that fear causes you to subconsciously push that person away to try and avoid conflict. It’s a sad truth and it’s dealt with in a subtle and graceful way here by Saleh Saadi.”

 

     Yet this short gem is not a coming out film, but a work of reconciliation, as the angry son, determined to get to the airport without his father, finally needs to come to terms with the fact that his father has suddenly, after two weeks of basically silence during his son’s visit, a desperate desire just to talk.

      When the mechanic can’t fix the car, a taxi from the company whom the father works for is called for. But in that short time, the father finally is able to admit that the anger and distance his son feels is not entirely of his son’s own making; and both apologize for their enforced distance.

     Amazingly gracefully for such a short film, the elder reveals that he has been surprised by a comment his son made at the dinner table, that he was moving into an apartment with his friend Christoph. Everyone else in the family seemed to know, but he was confused about the fact and later consulted is wife, who explained the situation—obviously that his son and Christoph are gay lovers. Moreover, the father has discovered that although his son seems only to like texting, his wife communicates with her son on Skype nearly every day.

 

    The implications are simply, but profound. He realizes that because of his own pride, inability to communicate, or whatever, he has lost touch with his child, and he wants him back into his life. In a short stand-off that resolves with both men holding back tears (along with the viewer, I might add), the father suggesting he too might communicate with him from time to time on Skype, and the son himself might wish every once in a while to call to his father.

       As the two wait for the taxi to arrive, they open up a range of emotional communications that have been refused by both of them for years. Nothing is said about the son’s sexuality. The father has frankly simply had to accept it. But it is now clear that over the borekas the two have reestablished a relationship that has been on hold for some long time.

       Although this is Palestine director Saleh Saadi’s first film, given the depth of acting and the various cinematic perspectives he is already a professional talent from whom we can hope to see further films.

 

Los Angeles, July 5, 2024 | Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog.