Moshe Rosenthal | Our Way Back / 2018

desert of love

by Douglas Messerli

 

Moshe Rosenthal (screenwriter and director) Our Way Back / 2018 [26 minutes]

 

It must be an Israeli thing since it has now shown up in various ways in three Israeli gay movies I’ve watched. In Guy Sahaf’s 2015 film צמא (Thirst), before that in Eytan Fox’s 1990 film After, and now in Moshe Rosenthal’s 2018 work Our Way Back, closeted gay men choose to meet up with their secret lovers in the most unlikely and forbidding of places, the Negev wilderness or other Israeli desert locations.

    In Fox’s work it’s just happenstance, as a young man serving his time in the Israel military discovers his commanding officer is gay. But in Thirst the gay lover escaping with his closeted friend for a few days of desert camping, delays their time together by emptying their water bottles and assuring that they lose their way so that eventually, to save themselves, they must call his girlfriend or wife to come pick them up and save them.

     You think that Uri (Lior Ashkenazi) and Obed (Shachar Netz), the former a 50-year-old married man with children and the latter his younger lover, might have caught on to the fact that, despite all the symbolic significance that the desert has in Hebraic tradition, if one is seeking to have a hidden weekend with his male lover he might choose a less forbidding landscape. Uri has told his wife that he is attending a convention in another city.

       Almost the moment they get far enough away from the compound in which Uri lives to hug, kiss, and express their pleasure in one another’s company—before that, Obed has hidden in his car by laying down in the back seat—trouble begins. Obed, walking with Uri across a high ridge, suddenly falls into the rugged ravine below and breaks his ankle. The event certainly wipes out any possibility for a romantic weekend, as Uri is forced to somehow mend his lover’s foot enough that he can carry him within the ravine and eventually hoist him up the ridge to get him back to the car.

      They encounter a night-time sand storm, Uri’s own physical problems that any man of 50 might experience after carrying a full-grown man for hours through the desert, and their own doubts about their love that arise from the situation.

       In fact, this tense and emotional film seems, at least at the beginning, to be focused only on the impossibilities of sustaining such a love given the extreme closetedness of their spring-summer relationship. But it quickly becomes apparent that there are other issues of more importance.

     When Oded first asks if Uri’s cellphone is working, the latter declares he doesn’t get reception this far away from civilization; but soon after Oded is able to connect from his phone. It’s obvious that he feels he would rather not, and his heroics are carried out, in part, in order to not have to call anybody in for help. What he plans to do with his hurt lover once they have returned to civilization is never explained, or even imagined perhaps by the characters. Yet it’s clear from Oded’s reassurances of how minor the injury actually is that he is trying to convince himself that he will not need the services of a doctor, or if he does that it will not involve him.

       But as they continue, finding everything more difficult than expected, it becomes clear and clearer than somehow—if they survive—they will have some serious explaining to do. Even as they miraculously find themselves just a few minutes from the car they encounter a patrol force who recognizes Uri’s automobile and begin calling out to him.

        Uri has no choice but to momentarily leave his friend behind and show himself, reassuring them that he is fine and, hopefully, sending them on their way again. But Uri is not all right and faints soon after. Unconscious, he cannot tell them of Oded’s condition or location, as he is rushed back to their home and into the hospital, where Uri finally comes to.

       The doctor is, in fact, a friend and asks if he should call Uri’s wife, which Uri assures him he will do himself. But the moment he is left alone, he escapes, returning by car to the spot in the desert, now several hours later, and retrieving Oded. Fortunately, Oded is still alive!

        But as the long trip back to civilization in silence suggests, Oded’s feelings for his lover and Uri’s own guilt has significantly altered their relationship. He cannot any longer ignore the fact that Oded will need medical attention and he will have to explain why he has left the hospital and reveal to his family reveal why he and Oded were in the desert together.

       In short, the deeply secretive world in which they and their love existed is now a thing of the past. They both must now face up to their lies, not only to others but to themselves. And surely, given what Uri has chosen over even the possibility of his friend’s death, will have ramifications for any continued love Oded will feel for him. Uri may soon be banished to a desert of love of his own making.

 

Los Angeles, April 20, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April 2023).