Extra Credit: Alex and Ali Review

“In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country,” claimed former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while speaking in New York in 2007. Alex & Ali, a love story more than 45 years in the making, shows us the lonesome world of two lovers separated by politics and time. Alex is an American who met a handsome volleyball player named Ali while volunteering in Iran with the Peace Corps in 1967. They instantly fell in love but the Iranian Revolution forced them apart with Alex fleeing back to the US in 1977. But for 35 years, they have kept in touch through letters, phone calls, and eventually, e-mails. Fast forward to May 2012 as Alex’s nephew plans to reunite the pair for two weeks in Istanbul, and Ali must make a decision: apply for refugee status and try to enter the US, or return to Iran and face the possibility of arrest and torture. The documentary follows the now elderly men around Istanbul as they struggle to revive their affections and make potentially life-changing decisions. Though their bond ran deep enough to keep them connected through middle age and into their later years, they must attempt to overcome the tremendous amount of change each has undergone and rekindle the spark they first ignited in their youth. Filmmaker Malachi Leopold does not hesitate to discuss the state of gays in Iran, a nation which is far behind the Western World in terms of social progress. Homosexuality is a taboo subject within the media and society as a whole, forcing an entire country into the closet. Alex fights to help Ali escape this world, but his biggest challenge proves to be overcoming the mindset instilled in his friend through years of persecution and hatred: Ali refuses to admit he is gay. Through the eyes of Alex and Ali, we are reminded that there are far too many people to whom government still defines how they can express their identities, and that the biggest obstacle to their happiness may be convincing them to overcome their own fears.