SIX ACTS (SHESH PEAMIM) (director: Jonathan Gurfinkel; screenwriter: Rona Segal; cinematographer: Shark De Mayo; editor: Arik Lahav-Liebovich; music: ; cast: Sivan Levy (Gili), Eviatar Mor (Omri), Roy Nik (Tomer), Niv Zilberberg (Shabat), Tal Grushka (Barel), Eran Ivanir (Omri’s Father), Ronit Yudkevich (Omri’s Mother); Runtime: 100; MPAA Rating: R; producer: Udi Yerushalmy; Tribeca Films; 2012-Israel-in Hebrew with English subtitles)
“An effective observant social conscious but ugly modern-day drama about privileged youth.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Israeli filmmaker Jonathan Gurfinkel(“The Arena”) directs an effective observant social conscious but ugly modern-day drama about privileged youth getting their rocks off by abusing those not up to their social status, popularity or looks. It’s provocatively written by Rona Segal. The title results because the drama is divided into six segments.
The plain-looking loner middle-class teenager Gili(Sivan Levy)has recently movedto the wealthy Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat HaSharon, and has naively become obsessed with the popular hunky rich boy charmer at her new school, Omri (Eviatar Mor), who treats her like a dog. Omri gets repeated sexual favors and acts cocky because he has the power to make her also have sex with his friends to please him and she goes running to him whenever he calls on his cell phone. The sad sack Gili tries to ingratiate herself with Omri’s in-crowd friends, but her efforts only result in humiliations that she’s in denial about or, maybe, she’s just a loser who is willing to be abused and passed around to Omri’s friend for unfeeling sex and can even shrug off being recorded on the cell phone while giving blow-jobs.
The joyless Gili, not even really enjoying her sexual encounters, entertains Omri and his pals in his parents’ luxury duplex while his parents choose to stay out of their affairs. While Gili’s disgruntled dad just lays on the couch and never even attempts to talk to her.
The pic offers no comments on all the inappropriate sexual behavior, which has become a pattern in the slutty girl’s life, but by making the sex scenes so masculine directed and beastly no real relationships can develop, as it tells us all we want to know about what the director thinks is wrong with such airhead materialist privileged teens and their tuned out parents. Everything is so crass that it is not only a turn-off to watch the hedonisticupper-class privileged in party-mode, but was a hard film to sit through without feeling contempt for all the players no matter that the film was so well-executed and cast and successfully got the look it was after.
REVIEWED ON 12/15/2013 GRADE: B-
Dennis Schwartz: “Ozus’ World Movie Reviews”
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