The movie is, on the surface about a strong willed family's attempt to steer their errant man child (as in doesn't follow the family rules on finding a marital partner who meets the requirements: younger; unmarried; unsullied; and malleable) out of independence towards conformity.We see him dragged off to sit and watch his, and a prospective bride's, family discuss them as pieces of merchandise. The callousness is presented as comedy, but is clearly intended for us to see how familial, tribal, values supersede those of the individual. The couple is encouraged to go off to the prospective bride's bedroom, where it is clearly intended for them to try out the merchandise. The older (31) male is clearly uncomfortable with the predatory nature of the girl (17), and ends up dealing with the "choice" offered with muteness. Soon we see that this is his preferred tactic within his familial zoo.As it turns out he already has a lover, an older(35)divorced woman with a child. To his family she is absolutely out of the question as a future member of the family, and soon they gather outside her apartment to plot how they will dissuade her.The responsibility of the situation is clearly foisted upon her, as the evil sorceress who has bewitched their boy (ironically she has attempted to put an amateurish spell on him by burning her underwear stained with his semen) and they troop up to the apartment to surprise the lovers.What follows is an insult fest aimed at the divorcée - in full view of her young daughter, who is treated kindly by the older women while they skewer her mother with contempt and the men threaten her with physical harm - who takes it quietly and almost expectantly of the required tribal ritual of casting her out of the picture as competition.This scene again seems to be presented as comedic, but comes across as a horror show to the uninitiated. Clearly no-one in the room seems able or willing to question the cruelty of the procedure. Our "hero" is mute, and the woman has no defense, telling us reams about how powerfully attached he is to the tribe, no matter how he might wish to be independent of it. And this is the crux of the movie. Blood is thicker than water but tribal blood is molasses.The final scene, of guess who's marriage celebration, shows him taking on the tribal mores of brutish cruelty, and destructive passive aggressiveness of the emasculated male. But it is clear that he offered up his testicles for sacrifice rather than had them removed. He is no pioneer, merely a dreamer; a man of inaction and his loss is his passion for risk taking; the core of vitality.

I went to see this movie having being told it was a comedy, and it is - until it takes an inevitable and disturbing turn. It's tragi-comedy in the purest, old-Greek sense, where the humour and the dread fuel each other. The star of the film is Lior Ashkenazi, a handsome, charismatic actor who plays Zaza as a complex character - in turn sexy and easy to root for, then weak and pitiable. The sex scene the film is famed for isn't particularly sexy, it is, instead horribly intimate - it's like a scene from your own bed, and the familiarity of it is shocking in a great way. Plus, the lack of fuss concerning nudity is marvellous - perhaps we do live in a civilized, modern world after all? The ending of the film is also disturbing, and in the end the movie isn't easy to take. I wouldn't want it any other way, but it makes repeat viewings difficult.

I should preface this by saying it's been almost a year since I saw this film, so I can't remember every scene in it. I appreciated the feel of the movie. I'm not personally acquainted with the culture, but the movie really had a sense of reality; it captured the situation, in that particular place very well.The beginning of the movie, when they go bride shopping, manages to be funny, but then the movie really shifts gears and does a decent job at drama. By the end of the movie, while I appreciated the non-Hollywood ending, I just didn't care what happened, none of the characters moved me.In general, I like films from other countries, but maybe this culture was just too foreign. I could see where the characters were coming from, but it just seemed so archaic and unreal; I just couldn't relate. The movie was well made, but I just didn't really enjoy it.

Apparently certain viewers are easily satisfied with this slice of exotic ethnicity sans the usual requirements of coherence and direction. I am not. As some have noted, it can be defined as a comedy only by some rather twisted logic. That involves the presumption that it is intended as an ironic portrayal of deeply flawed human behavior at odds with contemporary social norms.My own take is that everyone except the dog and the little girl seem to have come out of case studies in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). From the obese mother to the passive-aggressive son to the to the whole pack of stolid relatives who act as if nothing is strange about how they lead their lives, everything seems just plain weird.As has been noted, the love-making scene is not badly done. And the acting prowess of Ronit Elkabetz should garner some future attention. I would say the same for the dog, but I don't see him credited.A klezmer version of "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White" opens the final scene that deteriorates from there both in terms of plausibility and structural unity. Credits rolled without warning just as I was in the midst of a great yawn.