There are many fine reviews here on IMDb of Eyes Wide Open. I would like to add my viewpoint regarding the film.
I recognised the neighbourhood where "Eyes Wide Open" takes place. When I was a teenager my parents sent me to Israel to study with a program for high school students.While we studied we traveled around the country. One weekend we were taken to Jerusualem to see Mea Shearim, the Hasidic neighbourhood. The other girls and I were told to make sure we looked modestly dressed. We saw graffiti on the walls like the posters in the movie that denounce sinners (the graffiti, the teachers told us, criticised a man for not giving a get, a consent to his wife for a divorce).
During the scenes showing Aaron with his wife in their bedroom I remembered how I joked with my friends in Israel about how the ultra religious Jews make love through a sheet with a hole in it. Aaron and his wife act like some of the negative stereotypes we heard about: embarrassed about sex but having it to fulfil the commandment to be fruitful and multiply. There's no indication of how long they have been married, but they have four small children . The wife at first invites sex by telling Aaron she's been to the milkveh- in other words, she's ritually clean and it's okay for Aaron to touch her. She has lovely blonde hair but she has to wear a wig in public, or a wrap over her hair, so she shouldn't be a temptation to men. The young woman who runs the shop opposite from Aaron's butcher store has to obey her father and get engaged to his choice for her - I winced when the plate was dropped at her engagement party, signalling that the commitment was made, and there was no going back on it, like the plate now broken which couldn't be put back together. There's more than one person in this film who's shattered.
Aaron's wife is saintly. She's kind and patient with him, preparing dinner for him, keeping it warm it for him when he finally turns up late at night. She knows what's going on and where he's been, and sits waiting for him, reading her prayer book.
I was fascinated by how people can live a life committed to God and their beliefs. I realised I couldn't live a pious life. Following all the rules- having to consider every decision about how I acted, down to what I ate and what I wore - would make me feel suffocated. And as a woman, I wouldn't be able to fully participate in what drew me to orthodoxy and Hasidim: my religious life would be in the home, centred on making the household and the food kosher and raising and teaching children the laws of Jewish life. I couldn't sit with the rabbi and join the study group. Note that at her party the young woman is standing apart from her fiancé and the other men. The women are separated from the men by a barrier. They are kept in their own domain, even if, like the young woman, they're running their family's business. Notice that no one comes to her to discuss her behaviour and her choices- they visit her boyfriend and threaten to beat him up if he doesn't leave her alone. Only Aaron dares to ask how he feels about her, if he loves her, if his intentions are honourable. It's unthinkable that the girl and the man she favours could marry against her father's wishes. Their ultimate threat is beating him in front of his mother. His mother acts like she doesn't know what's happening, perhaps she has dementia.
Aaron's world is a male world, which makes it ironic that he's threatened with excommunication for daring to express sexuality - sexuality towards another other man.
I discovered during my university religion courses that the Torah and the Talmud aren't against the body. the stereotype of the sheet with a hole in it is one prejudiced against the ultra religious (note that Aaron's last name is Fleischman- meaning, "meat man". He's a butcher and a man of the flesh, the body) Men are commanded to make to love their wives, and to give them pleasure. But sexual passion is for husband and wife; sex outside of marriage is a sin for both partners.
I wish "Eyes Wide Open" conveyed more about the restrictions of the religious life and the issues behind the story. The ending of the film is heartbreaking. I also wish Aaron had the courage to grab Ezri and leave with him. But where would they go? There's no possibility for them to continue living as they want to.
I've heard over the years reports of tension between the religious communities and the liberal and secular groups in Israeli society; I remember a sermon by a rabbi in a progressive synagogue I attended about the past weeks' events in a Jerusalem neighbourhood: members of one Hassidic group had harassed people in for playing music in a restaurant on a Friday night, for violating the Sabbath by opening a business and using electronic devices. There are synagogues and Jewish groups in Israel and in the US that welcome gay people.
Yet, even if Aaron and Ezri decide to leave and find a community that accepts their relationship, they would have to live with the loss of everything they've ever known. Aaron would never be able to see his children again; his family would live in the shadow of the sins he's committed, including abandonment.
They visit the spring to purify themselves, like how Aaron's wife visits the mikveh to make herself pure after her period is over. It's sad that they can't stay in the wilderness where there is no one else and no judgment.
I recognised the neighbourhood where "Eyes Wide Open" takes place. When I was a teenager my parents sent me to Israel to study with a program for high school students.While we studied we traveled around the country. One weekend we were taken to Jerusualem to see Mea Shearim, the Hasidic neighbourhood. The other girls and I were told to make sure we looked modestly dressed. We saw graffiti on the walls like the posters in the movie that denounce sinners (the graffiti, the teachers told us, criticised a man for not giving a get, a consent to his wife for a divorce).
During the scenes showing Aaron with his wife in their bedroom I remembered how I joked with my friends in Israel about how the ultra religious Jews make love through a sheet with a hole in it. Aaron and his wife act like some of the negative stereotypes we heard about: embarrassed about sex but having it to fulfil the commandment to be fruitful and multiply. There's no indication of how long they have been married, but they have four small children . The wife at first invites sex by telling Aaron she's been to the milkveh- in other words, she's ritually clean and it's okay for Aaron to touch her. She has lovely blonde hair but she has to wear a wig in public, or a wrap over her hair, so she shouldn't be a temptation to men. The young woman who runs the shop opposite from Aaron's butcher store has to obey her father and get engaged to his choice for her - I winced when the plate was dropped at her engagement party, signalling that the commitment was made, and there was no going back on it, like the plate now broken which couldn't be put back together. There's more than one person in this film who's shattered.
Aaron's wife is saintly. She's kind and patient with him, preparing dinner for him, keeping it warm it for him when he finally turns up late at night. She knows what's going on and where he's been, and sits waiting for him, reading her prayer book.
I was fascinated by how people can live a life committed to God and their beliefs. I realised I couldn't live a pious life. Following all the rules- having to consider every decision about how I acted, down to what I ate and what I wore - would make me feel suffocated. And as a woman, I wouldn't be able to fully participate in what drew me to orthodoxy and Hasidim: my religious life would be in the home, centred on making the household and the food kosher and raising and teaching children the laws of Jewish life. I couldn't sit with the rabbi and join the study group. Note that at her party the young woman is standing apart from her fiancé and the other men. The women are separated from the men by a barrier. They are kept in their own domain, even if, like the young woman, they're running their family's business. Notice that no one comes to her to discuss her behaviour and her choices- they visit her boyfriend and threaten to beat him up if he doesn't leave her alone. Only Aaron dares to ask how he feels about her, if he loves her, if his intentions are honourable. It's unthinkable that the girl and the man she favours could marry against her father's wishes. Their ultimate threat is beating him in front of his mother. His mother acts like she doesn't know what's happening, perhaps she has dementia.
Aaron's world is a male world, which makes it ironic that he's threatened with excommunication for daring to express sexuality - sexuality towards another other man.
I discovered during my university religion courses that the Torah and the Talmud aren't against the body. the stereotype of the sheet with a hole in it is one prejudiced against the ultra religious (note that Aaron's last name is Fleischman- meaning, "meat man". He's a butcher and a man of the flesh, the body) Men are commanded to make to love their wives, and to give them pleasure. But sexual passion is for husband and wife; sex outside of marriage is a sin for both partners.
I wish "Eyes Wide Open" conveyed more about the restrictions of the religious life and the issues behind the story. The ending of the film is heartbreaking. I also wish Aaron had the courage to grab Ezri and leave with him. But where would they go? There's no possibility for them to continue living as they want to.
I've heard over the years reports of tension between the religious communities and the liberal and secular groups in Israeli society; I remember a sermon by a rabbi in a progressive synagogue I attended about the past weeks' events in a Jerusalem neighbourhood: members of one Hassidic group had harassed people in for playing music in a restaurant on a Friday night, for violating the Sabbath by opening a business and using electronic devices. There are synagogues and Jewish groups in Israel and in the US that welcome gay people.
Yet, even if Aaron and Ezri decide to leave and find a community that accepts their relationship, they would have to live with the loss of everything they've ever known. Aaron would never be able to see his children again; his family would live in the shadow of the sins he's committed, including abandonment.
They visit the spring to purify themselves, like how Aaron's wife visits the mikveh to make herself pure after her period is over. It's sad that they can't stay in the wilderness where there is no one else and no judgment.