Doubtful

Here we find an unfamiliar view of Israel’s underbelly, the underclass of the poor and the criminal outsiders who are unengaged in the usual Israeli issues of religion and politics. The action happens in Beersheba, the southern desert city a bus-ride and lifestyle away from the secular, fashionable Tel Aviv and holy Jerusalem. 

In the first shot we follow Assi down a dark passage, to the gathering throb of some pulsing rock music. It starts low, unheard, ominous, then gathers to a swell, like the denizens’ seething, explosive energy.

Down to the gut — in this case, a community centre where teenagers under house arrest are required to attend rehabilitating courses. The center’s leader necessarily enters scolding  — stop the gambling, don’t break the fusball, stop fighting, settle down.      But she defends her wayward charges: “Did you see him steal your wallet?” She’s also vigilant against their self-destructive truancy.

Assi himself is a poet and filmmaker who offers this course as community service, after he was involved in a drunken motorcycle accident. After serving his time in the army, he lost favour by making a film about his experiences there. He’s the mature, channelling outsider.

We don’t know if his new associates have done their army service yet. In any case, their anger and frustration may reflect the effect of being born and raised in such a besieged culture. None feels religious, though the mezuzas line the doorways and one party is a Jewish celebration. 

  As guest instructor, Assi handles his wild charges with flexibility and understanding. He invites their stories.

His kinship extends to his joining them in resisting a police response to their noise. But he draws a firm line when he suspects Eden of stealing his wallet and cellphone, then keeping his camera as collateral for a loan. 

The characters have predominantly modern names but there are a couple of key Biblical ones. Gang-boy Daniel recalls a savage animal test of faith. 

  But the key is the gang’s central member, Eden, whose name embodies postlapsarian Experience. He’s the case to which Assi is drawn, who provokes his harshest line and yet his most generous interest. After Eden erupts at seeing his mother close to Assi, Assi takes him along to Tel Aviv to settle down. 

  From his initial antagonism, Eden develops a respect for and trust in Assi. At the end, in his tragic predicament, Eden turns to Assi and has to be forcibly ripped away from his embrace. Indeed Eden discovers he wants Assi as the replacement for the father he never knew. He’s disappointed to meet Assi’s girlfriend, a cashier with a hidden extra life as a college student. 
     If the energy and wildness are one continuing vein in these characters, perhaps the underlying one is the absence of fathers. The wars have cost a lot of fathers, a lot of sons, so this film casts a fresh attention on one possible social effect. In this gang the boys live on the edge of violence and the girls sport even more toughness than the usual Sabra. Living cacti, all.