Review of Escape From Room 18

Unsettling but also unsatisfactory documentary about a Jewish young man who was a member of a Nazi skinhead gang in the US...at first the Nazis don't know he's Jewish, but then they find out and try to murder him, and he miraculously survives and escapes to Israel, where he and his family make a new life. Later - at the time the documentary is made - he meets up with one of his old Nazi skinhead friends, now no longer a Nazi or a skinhead, and they go on a trip to the Theresienstadt concentration camp together.

There's so much about this film that's weird - of course - but also so much that is unsatisfactory. There's not much consideration about the roots of Nazism and White Supremacy in the US, and no examination at all of what it means to escape from racists by going to live in Israel. The main character has moved to Israel with his mum, who speaks with a strong Southern accent, obviously misses the food and culture of the American South, and has a twin sister (who has also moved to Israel), and the two of them dress identically. Which would have been enough for a weird documentary in itself.