Lovesick on Nana Street

Chauvinist braggart Victor (Ivgi) has a reputation around his Israeli estate as the local lewd boy, so it's nothing unusual when he propositions a good-looking stranger in town, Michaella (Hasfari), inviting her to a supposed orgy with two Norwegian girls. She's not interested, but the days pass and Victor won't move on, dreaming up an affair and so losing his grip that he is incarcerated in the local asylum, alongside a host of similarly lovelorn fellows. This is one odd number: certainly captivating in its vision of unrequited love en masse, the town a cuckoo's nest of personal breakdown and pandemia. It's also highly problematic, given the director's evident yet obscure identification with Victor's plight: in particular, it's hard to unravel the congruence or otherwise of the character's sexist erotomania with his sudden fit of helpless amour fou. Intriguing, none the less.