Phobidilia (2009)

After suffering an emotional breakdown in a public place, a young man vows never to leave his apartment. He quickly discovers that in today's world all his needs can be easily met: sex via ... See full summary »

Directors:

Doron Paz, Yoav Paz

Writers:

Izhar Harlev (book), Izhar Harlev (screenplay),

Stars:

Ofer Shechter, Efrat Boimold, Shlomo Bar-Shavit

1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
Ofer Shechter	...	Our hero
Efrat Boimold	...	Daniela
Shlomo Bar-Shavit	...	Grumps
Efrat Dor	...	Jessica
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Gilad Perlman	...	Cable technician
Gil Tabat
David Ben Yosef	...	Wainblum

Storyline

After suffering an emotional breakdown in a public place, a young man vows never to leave his apartment. He quickly discovers that in today's world all his needs can be easily met: sex via the Internet, food by telephone delivery and entertainment by television. Four years later, his idyllic existence comes under attack when Daniela, a free spirited girl comes into his life while Grumps, the building's real estate agent, informs him that the apartment is about to be sold. Our hero refuses to leave his kingdom and decides to fight till the bitter end.

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Plot Keywords:

sex | computer | lonely man | tv | masturbation | 

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Taglines:

Life was perfect until reality knocked on his door

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

Israel

Language:

Hebrew English

Release Date:

25 February 2010 (Israel)

Filming Locations:

Tel Aviv-Yafo, Tel Aviv, Israel

Company Credits

Production Co:

Artza Productions, Israel Film Fund

Technical Specs

Runtime:

87 min 87 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital (35 mm prints)

Color:

Color (35 mm version) Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1 / (anamorphic)

Did You Know?

Connections

References The Matrix (1999)

User Reviews

Retreating from nowhere interesting to nowhere interesting

A traumatized young man retreats into himself, he is induced briefly to reestablish contact with the world, but he wonders whether he wasn't better off by himself after all. The premise isn't a bad one; it worked for The Who's TOMMY, for Dan Wollman's HA-TIMHONI, and for Neil Diamond's SHILOH. Here, unfortunately, not so much-- maybe primarily because we don't get a strong enough sense that the world the protagonist retreated from is so bad, nor that the world he retreats into has much allure, nor that he has any personal merits or promise; he's merely a disturbed fellow with whom we can't identify, and we can't identify with any other major character here either. A girl comes knocking on the door (literally) and is supposed to be the protagonist's hold on reality, but her own behavior is unrealistic even by filmscript standards. Also, there is a syndrome that better Israeli movie makers long ago cured themselves of-- the attempt not to be identifiably Israeli. Pathetically, the movie even includes a grandfatherly character called "Grumps"-- evidently because nobody with an ear for English was around to correct it to "Gramps." On the plus side... the soundtrack is quite good.