Out in the Dark

Following in the footsteps of Eytan Fox (Yossi & Jagger) and Haim Tabakman (Eyes Wide Open), writer/director Michael Mayer puts a political spin on the problem of being gay in contemporary Israel. It might have been enough for Tel Aviv lawyer Roy (Michael Aloni) and Ramallah student Nimr (Nicholas Jacob) to challenge cultural convention by having a passionate affair. But Mayer and co-writer Yael Shafrir overcomplicate matters by having Nimr's brother (Jameel Khoury) belong to an Islamic fundamentalist cadre which suspects that Nimr is an informant for the Israeli Defence Force. The switches between touching love story, intense domestic melodrama, proselytising political tract and tense thriller are slightly cumbersome, while the Israeli and Palestinian zealots are mostly crude caricatures. But the leads are convincing and the restless handheld camerawork enables Mayer to convey the ambience of his largely nocturnal locations and the dangers of being different in a tinderbox society.