Drifting (1982)

Original title

נגוע

Directed by

Amos Guttman

Genre

drama film, LGBTQ-related film

Country

Israel

Runtime

1h 20m

Rating

6.0 of 10 from 8 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A young gay man in 1980s Israel seeks love and a career in filmmaking. He struggles with both his personal desires and the limited way his community portrays gay people on screen.

melancholiclonelyintrospectiveearnestbleakslow-burnpersonalfrustrated

What happens

Drifting (a.k.a. Nagu'a) is an independent film directed and co-written by Amos Guttman. Filmed in 1982 and released commercially a year later, it is one of the first Israeli LGBT-themed films, and follows a lonely young gay man as he attempts to find love and break into the movie business. The film is in Hebrew. Sometimes the film's title is translated as Afflicted. In the film's opening monologue, Robbie states the following words that express frustration with the portrayal of LGBTQ characters in Israeli cinema:If the film were to address a social issue or have political awareness, it should feature a soldier, a resident of a development town, someone serving on a destroyer, a war widow, someone who has become religious. But if you must, make him gay. Let him suffer. At least let him not enjoy it... The country is burning, there is no time for self-exploration, there is a war now. There is always a war. The audience here won’t accept it, there are deceased relatives. Why would they identify with me? The gay association doesn’t even want to hear about the films I made. Not positive films, not films that present things in the desired light.Critic Janet Maslin notes that Gutman portrays Robbie in a powerful and largely unsentimental way, capturing his complexities without resorting to sentimentality, however, she also finds that the film lacks "narrative energy". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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