MQFF NOTES: Barash (2015, Dir. Michal Vinik)

With its colour and youthful exuberance, Michal Vinik’s Barash recalls the vibrancy of seminal girl on girl coming-out drama, Fucking Åmål. That’s high praise from where I sit. If you need anything added to that, I’d also say that the physical moments these young girls share tops anything that Abdellatif Kechiche put onscreen in the laughably drawn out sex scenes of Blue is the Warmest Colour. Maybe that is the boon of having a woman behind the camera.

Barash has a nice bite to it. Its girl meets girl narrative is pretty standard, but the trappings (a missing sister, a vampiric ex and some chemical experimentation) are handled with deft comedy and the two leads, Sivan Noam Shimon and Hadas Jade Sakori, share a thrilling chemistry.

Vinik’s debut feature pumps with energy and she channels it to all the right places. Politically and socially, she positions the girls’ love story in the region’s turmoil with cheeky defiance, thumbing her nose at Israeli superiority as pertains to Palestine and at the heady excess of gay Tel Aviv.

There’s a delightful burn-itself-out quality to Barash that leaves a glow after all is done and dusted. It never gets too heavy but it never feels overly light. It is as important as young love feels and just as ephemeral. It was wonderful to revisit that.

★★★☆

Trailer:

Barash screened as part of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival 2017. 

You can check out other films from the festival here.