Eyes Wide Open

Eyes Wide Open ends with an ambiguous image: Aaron, respectable family man once more, revisits the spring outside Jerusalem where he swam with his soon-to-be lover Ezri. He immerses himself anumber of times before finally disappearing under the water. Are we to view this as a suicide attempt or as something more metaphoric? Certainly the spring is the location where Aaron was first led astray ("when did you last leave Jerusalem?" Ezri asks him) but it's also the beginning of his rebirth (Aaron tells the rabbi that he was dead before he met Ezri and now he's alive) Is it even possible to go back to his previous existence once Ezri departs?
The ultra-Orthodox community where both men live is not an environment where their love can flourish. Initially Aaron rebuffs Ezri's advances by claiming that resisting temptation will bring both of them to God and to the outside world he seems initially to be trying to redeem the young man (already thrown out of his previous yeshiva) However this only torments them further. Ironically they finally succumb in the cold store of the butcher's shop that Aaron owns, and their affair plays out in the confines of this building, yet from the start it is doomed. Ezri, the only character who is true to his nature, is viewed with hostility by the community; his former lover pretends nothing happened and coldly rejects him; and prying eyes are everywhere. Even worse, members of the synagogue take it upon themselves to be the upholders of morality - and Aaron himself is one of them. He is one of the trio that visit a young transgressor. The man may claim that he and the girl Sara are deeply in love but her father has arranged a marriage for her and the obstacle must be removed. It's no surprise when Aaron finds himself the recipient of such visits, complete with threats of a boycott and broken windows. Posters proclaim "A sinner in the neighbourhood" and Ezri is ostracized, and later beaten up while Aaron does nothing to help. Once more the young man is driven away. Love, it appears, is no match for persecution and intolerance.