DVD Review: “Assraelis”

We quiver like a little rabbit's nostril lately when we feel that the hype surrounding an event or product is more substantive than the product itself, so we were pleasantly surprised to view, at long last, "Assraelis", a movie fraught with tasty Mediterranean types. Join us after the gap to see why no holy war is necessary, but also why parts of Rony Pornstar could launch a thousand ships.

(Yes, we know that was Troy, but that's how impressed with Rony Pornstar we were.) - GP

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Assraelis

Studio: Tightfit Productions
Director: Ilay Kimchi
Cast: Rony Pornstar, Ehud Sa'ado, Alma Fauck, Shotty G, Shelly Mimon, Amos Menoy, Ron Dankner, May Buskila

Review by Gram Ponante

Assraelis is an added-value porn movie. In addition to being a travelogue for those of us who have not visited Israel it is also a marketing hook that includes angry outcries from clergy, just by virtue of the movie having been shot in Tel Aviv. I'll try to keep the porn movie separate from the other bells and whistles as much as possible.

Filmed mostly in public spaces in Israel's capital, Assraelis is a standard gonzo that might have been shot in front of a bluescreen in Porn Valley (aside from the fact that Porn Valley doesn't use bluescreens). The sex always starts with fondling and a blowjob and always ends with a facial popshot. See? We're not that different.

There are other similarities. In group scenes, as in America, the guys are like a roving pack. The opening vignette features two cabbies cruising the outskirts of Tel Aviv for chicks. They pick up two and ostensibly kidnap them. The girls escape but are quickly lured back to fuck their captors, exhibiting a full-blown Stockholm Syndrome despite the brevity of the taxi ride.

After the cabtop deed is finished, the dudes speed away, leaving the ladies half naked in the street. "Fuck your mother's cunt!" someone says (I'm assuming one of the girls, but if it was one of the guys, what a nerve).

Not only is this similar to what Prince did to Apollonia in Purple Rain, but that casual misogyny is American Porn Standard.

That said, the women in Assraelis are all-natural and sassy, particularly the brunettes May Buskila and Rony Pornstar. Though the motions are often the same, absent is the regrettable stateside device of having anyone look directly at the camera to pose and bite her fingers. I hate that.

Rony Pornstar in particular seems to be enjoying her job. In both a beach scene by the Mediterranean and an unlikely-but-who-cares? group grope in a park (the gang finds her asleep on a bench and, counter to Mosaic law, proceed to grab her clothes off), she wears a big smile.

Forgivable problems with the movie include some blatant ADR gaffes (we hear people moaning in an echo-y studio when on screen their mouths are closed and they're in a park), as well as brief looped sequences reminiscent of 80's porn. But the performances. Obviously the filmmakers grew up watching a lot of porn because they have the beats down, but the performances are not rote, and that is refreshing.

In the same way that the Chinese call Chinese food "food", Assraelis was a title created by the movie's distributor, Tightfit Productions. The marketing of this movie with its Hebraic font and the subsequent solicitations of a hue and cry from rabbis had nothing to do with the way the movie was filmed.

For example, a squad of Israeli soldiers by chance marching near Rony's tryst is filmed cheering the couple on. There are no mentions of the Intifada or Scud attacks. I guess it would be shocking to see foreskins on the guys, but the only thing one could really point to as "Israeli" in the movie is that everyone is speaking Hebrew. The cast's lack of tattoos is also not enough to guess its nationality.

How is this movie different from any other porn movie? The women are hot as a burning bush. Next year in Jerusalem!

· Tightfit Productions (tightfit.com)
· Buy "Assraelis" (gamelink.com)