Snails in the Rain, now out on DVD, is an intriguing but muddled story about Boaz (Yoav Reuveni), an extremely attractive linguistics student at Tel Aviv University during a hot summer in 1989. Boaz is receiving anonymous letters from a man who finds him, well, extremely attractive.
“I think about you incessantly,” one letter reads. Boaz is not exactly flattered by the attention. He is, in fact, creeped out by it. He doesn’t tell his girlfriend Noa (Moran Rosenblatt), but then again, she isn’t telling him of her plans to attend architecture school in Haifa. When Noa discovers the letters, she tries to sort out who is sending them.
The film, written and directed by Yariv Mozer, who co-stars as Boaz’s linguistics professor, is adapted from a story by Yossi Avni Levy. Perhaps something got lost in translation. Snails in the Rain is edited in a way that flashes back in time periodically to show Boaz’s experiences in the Israeli army. The film also suggests that Boaz is paranoid, threatened by every man who glances at him, or makes a sexual overtone—intentional or not. Mozer seems so fixated on creating an atmosphere of mystery and doubt that viewers may not understand what is real and what might be imagined.
That said, viewers who are more interested in Reuveni’s chest and body will not have to worry about the plot. Reuveni, a model making his acting debut here, barely does a scene without taking off his shirt, swimming in a pool, taking a shower, hitting the beach, or sweating in the kitchen, bathtub or bedroom. He is beautiful and doesn’t give a bad performance, but it is hard to sympathize with him being pained at being so admired.
Snails in the Rain include several scenes where Boaz becomes aggressive towards men who make verbal and visual passes at him. He threatens a man who spies on him in the library, and later comes on to him in a men’s room. He has an intense interaction with a man in aQ cruising park. And he cops an attitude towards Nir (Yehuda Nahari), an army buddy who calls him beautiful, strokes his cheek, and plants a kiss on him. Boaz also bumps into hot guys on the street, in the pool, in the locker room, and elsewhere, as if to suggest everyone wants a piece of him. His anger—at the letters perhaps, and his repressed feelings more likely—indicate that he perhaps protests too much. That he takes his frustrations out on his best friend at the beach is barely excusable. When he forcibly sodomizes Noa in the kitchen, his actions are unconscionable.
Mozer may be addressing issues of masculinity in Israel, but the film’s portrayal of sex is curious. Noa happily brings Boaz to climax in the bathtub, but she does not bat an eyelash when he smacks her down in the tub for questioning his sexuality as he makes a comment about the guy in the library staring at him. Likewise, a flashback involving Nir locking eyes with Boaz while participating in a jerk off competition is followed by a scene of Boaz and Nir checking each other out in the shower. If the film is trying to define how male sexuality and sexual identity is acceptable in some situations but not others, this message is not going to be embraced by queer viewers.
Snails in the Rain builds to its climax when Boaz’ secret admirer forces the object of his affection to confront the reality of their situation. Asking Boaz to flip the kitchen light switch to continue their one-sided correspondence, Mozer tries to build tension—cutting to shots of the clock, or having Boaz excuse himself to get something to eat from the kitchen—to portray Boaz’s struggle with how to respond. The sequence seems forced, and what actually unfolds does not have sufficient payoff. This may be, in part, because Noa identifies the mysterious writer before Boaz does. Of course, Mozer includes a few scenes that reveal more about Boaz and his admirer, but they feel tacked on, rather than organic.
Snails in the Rain isn’t terrible; it’s a passable enough time filler. But it will be more appreciated as a showcase for Reuveni’s hot body than how it depicts gay men.
© 2014 Gary M. Kramer
Gary M. Kramer is the author of “Independent Queer Cinema: Reviews and Interviews,” and the co-editor of “Directory of World Cinema: Argentina.” Follow him on Twitter @garymkramer
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