Tropic Sprockets / Concerned Citizen

 By Ian Brockway

From director Idan Haguel (Inertia) comes “Concerned Citizen,” a timely drama of ego and paranoia with tension that echoes a psychological thriller. [Check Tropiccinema.com for showtimes and trailer.]

Ben (Shlomi Bertonov) is an architect emotionally bound to a tree he just planted. The next day he sees two immigrants leaning on the tree. He becomes angry and firmly tells them to stop. He is incensed and calls to lodge a complaint with the city. The next afternoon the Israeli police see the young man from Eritrea and kick him mercilessly in the head. The man is left bleeding and unconscious by the tree. 

Ben and his partner Raz (Ariel Wolf) are planning to have a baby, but he can’t get it out of his mind that his actions most definitely caused mortal harm to the man. 

Ben can’t concentrate and becomes foul tempered. 

This is a tense narrative from start to finish that questions the notions of progressive values. Can a liberal couple be consumed with self-centered ideas of order and gentrification?

Bertonov and Wolf who are coupled in real life are excellent in this film.

One scene that stands out takes place during a Pride parade when Ben and Raz proudly pose under an Equality sign.

Pointed and visceral, this is a punchy, compact film that recalls something of Paul Schrader and perhaps even Polanski in its portraiture of urban paranoia and the apprehensive emotions involved in having a baby.

Like all the best drama, the anxiety starts from something trivial and innocent and suddenly becomes a tenebrous and toxic element in the mind, thick and almost impossible to shake.

The summer colors of Tel Aviv merge into a gray angst even against a rainbow flag.

Write Ian at [email protected]

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