checking out the territory
by Douglas Messerli
Nir
Sadeh (director) First Time / 2010 [4.15 minutes]
This
very short Israeli film, shot during the Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade of June
2010, is the tale of a young man (Age Greenbaum) who wanders purposely if
rather terrified into the parade route.
Just as he is about to reach the parade
site he receives a call from what appears to be his female girlfriend (in the
English translation he calls her “sweetie” and “baby”) to whom he lies, saying
that he has got “caught up in work,” and begs to see her later in the evening.
He starts out again to the parade, for a
moment losing his courage as he pulls away, red-cheeked, into a small alley
way, an older man who notices him checking to make sure he’s all right.
But the attractive young man regains his
courage watching the parade approaching as he sits on the street curb, but
getting up and moving back to watch it pass.
After, he goes to the beach where
thousands have gathered to party, he only standing at a distance to watch the
celebrants with fascination.
And there the film ends. The young man having obviously taken everything in, even if from a distance and with some discomfort; and it is clear from the way he looks at the gay flag, staring at it for a few moments, he has taken some sense of comfort in seeing so many people involved in a world into which he has not yet been able to enter.
Our questions are endless, which include
clearly what he might tell his girlfriend that evening or simply how long
before he does tell her where and why he has been there, to the LGBT parade.
But of course, we have no answers; and several of the respondents to this short
film on YouTube suggested that they had gone through some of the same feelings
upon their “first time.”
This is the kind of movie one wants to
recommend to anyone who even hints of a curiosity about gay life. Start here
with the evidence of some of the more vast gay community which for most the
year remains totally invisible except for those already on “the other side.”
For in a sense by attending this event, no matter how tentatively, the hero of
this tale has indeed “come out,” if in no other manner than in taking interest
in a world about which he clearly feels might someday include him.
Los
Angeles, August 30, 2022
Reprinted
from World Cinema Review (August 2022).