Antarctica

Continuing the tradition of great foreign gay cinema, along comes Antarctica, a 2008 Israeli film by Yair Hochner that arrives on DVD this month. And if we're keeping score, I'd say it's one of my favorite gay movies this year.

After an opening in which single guy Boaz (Ofer Regirer) beds half the gay population of Tel Aviv through a succession of increasingly hot sex scenes, we move to the heart of the piece. Antarctica takes a slice-of-life look at a group of gay men (and two women) living in Israel, in what appears to be the most accepting city in the world. Being gay is not an issue here, so in a way it does seem like the film is a fantasy. But quite frankly, it's a welcome one, where the focus is on the character's love lives rather than the watching endless "will we get caught or won't we" scenes.

Here's the plot, put simply: Omer (Tomer Ilan) is a handsome guy who works in a bookshop and is about to turn thirty. He kind of likes Danny (Yiftach Misrahi), a dancer who once had an affair with Boaz. (Who hasn't?) Meanwhile, Ronen (Guy Zoaretz) is a handsome journalist writing a story on alien abductions who comes to the bookstore for research. There, he flirts with Omer and asks him to come to an abductee meeting. But Ronen is dating Miki (Yuval Raz), who is best friends with Omer, which, as one would expect, will make all of this a wee bit complicated.

Add into the mix Omer's lesbian sister, Shirley, who is in love with Michal (Liat Ekta), the owner of the restaurant wherre she works, and Shoshana, Oren and Shirley's mother, played in drag by Noam Huberman.

It all sounds as though it should be rather confusing and messy, but the magic here is that it's not. While one might wonder where the film is going (indeed, the message of the movie is a bit muddled), the characters are so engaging that I didn't mind spending two hours with them. In fact, I'd almost like to see Antarctica as a TV series so I could watch the characters develop and become more invested in them. As it was, I started to fall in love with Oren a little bit, rooting for him to make the right choices. And even Boaz, who is clearly the biggest playboy in the Middle East, has a moment where we see there is more to him than we might expect.

While it is a curiosity as to why Oren's mother is played by a man (thus making her scenes distracting), the rest of the cast plays the film straight and honest. There is no overacting and the guys are interesting and relatable. How refreshing to see people we recognize, yet how disappointing we rarely see these people in American gay cinema.

On a superficial note, this is one attractive cast. Every guy is hot in their own way and has a charm that grows on you. They aren't muscle-boy Abercrombie and Fitch models, but they have an undeniable sexiness that makes the movie even that more watchable.