Blush (Michal Vinik, 2015) :Israel

Reviewed by Felix Palmqvist, Santa Barbara film festival, 2016, Fiesta Five

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This film surprised me. It had much better production than what I expected when I first read about it. It turned out to be a thrilling love story about a girl who exploring her sexuality and all the drama that comes with it. I saw this film at the Santa Barbara Film Festival screening. The director, Michal Vinik, was at the screening and he talked about the film. I find it interesting to see such an open-minded film from that part of the world. It almost felt like an American production, with the way it was shot, but also the environment in the film reminded me of California.

Daana, the main character, starts off as an innocent school girl who is hanging out with the “good” girls and is taking school very seriously. The first sight of the blonde girl, who soon is going to be Daana’s crush, is at the schoolyard. Daana and her friends talk behind her back, because she is hanging out with the “cool” guys and she is being different. But we can see in Daana’s eyes that there is something about the blonde girl that she finds interesting. Later that day, they meet randomly in the restroom and start to talk. From that day they are just becoming closer friends, and the girl takes Daana out to party and makes her try all types of drugs. Her life starts taking off in a whole other direction and she really enjoys herself, although maybe a bit too much. I would say she falls in love with sex, drugs and party lifestyle, which starts to show in many different ways.

There is great camerawork in this film. The camera is handheld, but it is still not too shaky. It just put a real feeling to it, like I was present in the story. However, the music and editing were nothing special.

This film kind of reminded me of the American film Boyhood, only this one was less hostile against homosexuals and more of a love story.

I like this film and I highly recommend it, especially if you like the more alternative types of scenes. The chemistry between Daana and the blonde girl really felt real. It was great to see love between the same sex look so natural.