Review of Trembling Before G-d

Introduction

If there was ever a documentary made for a restricted and specific audience, then this is it. To really relate to this material you have to be two things a)Gay and b)Jewish - and in that order. Obviously the subject is dear to the heart of the director Sandi Simcha Dubowski, and he`s put his soul into the making of this documentary. If however like me you`re neither of the two prerequisites mentioned above, you`re faced with 84 minutes of rather dry filmmaking and a lot of talking heads.

The documentary, shot on video over five years, was an official selection in the 2001 Sundance Film Festival and is suitably worthy. It`s all about faith and sexuality - and the problems faced by Gay and Lesbian Jews given the Biblical prohibitions against homosexuality. For us Gentiles with our more ambivalent attitudes towards both sexual proclivities and religion, it`s a view into a pretty alien culture.

With the main documentary on one disc and the extras on a second, Anchor Bay has gone out of its way to showcase this material.

Video

Shot on video in 1.33:1, quality is not the highest. In fact a lot of the material is shot on bog-standard camcorder.

Audio

A not very exciting Dolby Stereo mix. It`s all talk anyway.

Features

There are masses of extras, but from a quality control aspect they`re no better than the main documentary and I noticed a slight pulsing of the image on all the extras on the second disc.

There are trailers for New Yorker Films, a featurette on the making of the documentary and its impact. There are interviews with the director, editor, and more Rabbis than you can shake a stick at. There`s a short film by the director called Tomboychik, a trailer and other odds and ends.

Slightly galling are the subtitles which are no good for the hard-of-hearing, being only provided in Hebrew and Yiddish.

Conclusion

Oy...