UNDER WESTERN EYES

UNDER WESTERN EYES borrows its title from a Joseph Conrad novel about revolutionary Russia, and its climax from Xeno's Paradox. Its' about a spy but unlike any cloak-and-dagger thriller you've ever seen; bonds here are pyshcological, historical, and familial, not James. En route to Berlin to study architecture, Gary Razumov receives an urgent summons to Tel Aviv. His father Itzhak, a long-jailed Soviet secret agent who never cracked under interrogation, has escaped from prison. Gary has not seen his father in eight years, but an enigmatic series of audiotapes and hostile surveillance by an ill-matched pair of Israeli operatives compel the young scholar on a journy through the fringes of society. Alternating between color and monochrome, the camera follows Gary through way-stations in an emigre community that still considers Itzhak Razumov a hero, to a final reckoning in the desert. Wry, suspenseful, and as resonant as a pistol shot over arid sands, UNDER WESTERN EYES wil open yours. In Hebrew with English subtitles.- Charles Cassady