User Reviews

(I wrote this as a response after seeing a one-time screening of Blues By The Beach at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater in Manhattan, hosted by Jack Baxter) Seeing the film at a moviehouse was quite a difficult and moving experience. The folks at Mike's are more-or-less family to me and it hurt to see what they faced. It's probably impossible for me to view it objectively, because I was watching the testimony of friends that I care for deeply. Despite this, I'll give a shot at making an objective observation or two.

What worked about the movie for me was that the film itself didn't try to comment on the events in any way. It wasn't preachy. It wasn't making a statement. It simply set the scene and let the events unfold, and gave a window into the repercussions faced by some of the people who were most closely affected. This was done by showing the people in a personal and candid manner and letting them speak for themselves without the voice of detached narrative to put things in perspective.

The closest it gets to narrative is Jack's speeches throughout. As a character in the story, however, he comes across as an insider like the bar staff, musicians, and other people in the film. He begins as an outsider who swooped in to make some form of political or other commentary through the medium of film, but that changes as the events unfold. When it's all over, he's a filmmaker who became part of the scene at Mike's Place innocently, and was caught up in the tragedy just like everyone else who was unwillingly dragged into the violence.

If I could identify a theme, it's derailment. It's the way that evil seeks to derail the things in life that are precious. The senseless act of violence derailed Dom's future dreams by cutting her life short. It derailed Josh and Pavla's relationship, and attempted to derail the happy-go-lucky, hippy-dippy peace and love social scene of Mike's Place. It derailed the bar staff's jubilation of working at one of the best jobs on earth. Finally, the film is about its own derailment; it starts as Jack's happy story about an unassailable island of peace, sanity and music in the middle of a world of chaos, and becomes Josh and Pavla's coverage of a tragic tale of horror and pain.

Some things get put back on track, but some things cannot. Mike's Place and its staff returned to their former glory despite the temporary derailment. Thankfully, that dream was not permanently derailed. Still, lives lost cannot be put back on track, and relationships that were destroyed remained destroyed. The derailed film itself manages to get back on track by telling a tale of survival and healing despite unreasonable losses, proving that the island of peace, sanity and music, while not as unassailable as it seemed, was ultimately able to survive the assault.

In this way, the statement that actually came through is formulated within the viewer. The only statement is the purely human reaction that anyone would have when put inside the scenario. The viewer sees through the eyes of a group of fun-loving and innocent optimists... bystanders really, who were viciously and evilly attacked with unimaginable callous.

--Lyle Scott, proud former staff of Mike's Place Jerusalem and forever part of the family.

I was lucky enough to view this film in the presence of Jack Baxter, the producer, and one of the people wounded when Mike's Place was bombed. Having the chance to personally meet and speak to Jack and his wife Fran was a true honor. Their commitment to bringing this story to the world is inspiring. This film gave the rest of the world the opportunity to see what really happens in Israel when a bomb explodes. It is almost voyeuristic in its disclosure of intimate moments between survivors and loved ones. And watching friends searching for each other in the rubble left behind by a suicide bomb is almost too much to watch. It is almost as difficult to watch as the process of cleaning up the crime scene, including the wringing out of bloody sponges, and the removal of pieces of human bodies from the walls of the club. But more powerful than the violence and destruction, is the struggle of those whose lives were forever changed by this horrific event, to move on and make peace with the bombing. And these people deal with a full range of emotions in front of a camera in order to bring the truth about terrorism to the world. This is truly a must see film.

Blues by The Beach tells a story I am well acquainted with. Under my own (admittedly amateur) direction, I filmed a good 90% of the film and was in the cutting room for 2 months of the editing process. I am the filmmaker, whom the blow threw - together with Joshua - in front of the camera lens. I am the girl screaming and the girl disturbed enough by the event to turn cold to the man she came to Israel for. The disintegration of my relationship to Joshua, the "current" director of the film, is seen in the film as an example of the emotional impact of terrorism.

I am Pavla.

Although hired as and expected to be the director of the film, I distanced myself from it because I disagreed with the direction that my co-director and ex partner, Joshua and the producer, Jack, wanted to take the film in. I disagreed with their proposed and executed framework - with Jack being the storyteller and our relationship being just another ingredient. I wished to make the film from my point of view or that of myself and Joshua, believing that a story of conflict in the Middle East, told in the context of a love story, would make the film more interesting, intimate and powerful. It would also justify the amateur quality of the camera work …

I had put an enormous amount of work (and time) into the film and expected in the very least to be given the chance to express myself. It was promised to me from the start and stipulated by our contract. As a first time director, I understood that I had to prove myself first so asked for the chance to edit the film in my way and to have my version compared with that produced by Joshua. But I was not given the chance: I was denied access to the footage I had shot and the intimate diary I had instigated was exploited without my consent. Last but not least, I never got paid for my work (30.000 dollars per contract) - nor received acknowledgement or percentage of the film's proceeds.

With every film there is a story behind a story and I understand that what matters to the viewers is what's on the screen - not the behind the stage. My compulsion to speak about the Backstage has to do with the fact of not having been given an opportunity to tell my story through the film.

The film is an homage to the people who died in the bombing, and for this reason, I am glad it exists, in whatever form. However, I believe it is significant that the filmmakers who figure in the main credits now have trampled upon one of Mike's Place bomb's victims - myself - without whom this authentic and intimate documentary of terrorism would not exist. As a documentary filmmaker myself, I can say that Joshua and Jack have breached one of the key responsibilities of a documentary filmmaker: respect and ethical approach to the people, whose lives they choose to "play with" in their film.

Pavla Fleischer