DVD Review: Eytan Fox’s Yossi & Jagger on Strand Releasing Home Video

Films that have gained immeasurably from their star’s eyes: The Wind, Sunset Boulevard, The Fury and now Yossi & Jagger.

Yossi & JaggerThere are only two locations in director Eytan Fox’s Yossi & Jagger: a claustrophobic, anthill tenement for Israeli soldiers and a hidden forest inlet just outside its staked-out perimeter. They represent, naturally, two very different social levels of homosexual acceptance for the film’s title characters, respectively a repressed army general and his barely-containable second-in-command (in both senses of the designation).

In the cramped halls of the base, homosexuality is treated as a joke at best. “What if I were gay?” asks Lior (Yehuda Levi), who’s called Jagger because of his rock-star looks, to another jocular soldier, who replies, “We’d all fuck you, you’re pretty enough.” But on the hillside, the impossibly blue-eyed Jagger feels free and uninhibited enough to sing along to what his secret lover, Yossi (Ohad Knoller), scowlingly refers to as “queenish music,” and even changes the lyrics to transform the song into a playful ode to backdoor lovemaking.

In the film’s spare running time, Fox and screenwriter Avner Bernheimer strip away almost anything that doesn’t present a dichotomy of conflict. They let the simple divisions between gay and straight, men and women, fast and slow, and adventurous and reserved become the essence of the film’s ultimately tragic take on Israel’s policy of mandatory military service.

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Just as Yossi isn’t the only character that opts to keep his true feelings locked deep inside himself, Jagger’s tendencies to pursue personal fulfillment shows up in other characters, not least of which the female soldier, Yaeli (Aya Koren), with a hopelessly futile crush on Jagger, but also including the burgeoning gourmet chef (Erez Kahana) who spends his military days slumming over meatball sushi. The crucial point, and what ultimately helps the film stand tall amid the overpopulated gay cinema ghetto, is that youth simply cannot be contained into an institution that thrives on the total annihilation of psychological ambiguities.

Image/Sound

The film is really mostly a muted DV job, with very little in the way of aesthetic aspirations (why waste time on complex establishing shots when you’ve got naturally attractive actors?), so the unimpressive video transfer isn’t much of a drawback. The audio mix, however, outpaces the video to an almost distressing level. It’s like watching a home video of your kid brother surfing set to the Apocalypse Now soundtrack. Resounding bass levels and solid stereo movement. It’s not Hollywood, but it’ll do.

Extras

All that’s included is the music video for Yossi & Jagger’s answer to “My Heart Will Go On.”

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Overall

Films that have gained immeasurably from their star’s eyes: The Wind, Sunset Boulevard, The Fury and now Yossi & Jagger.

Score: 
 Cast: Ohad Knoller, Yehuda Levi, Assi Cohen, Aya Steinovitz, Hani Furstenberg, Sharon Raginiano, Yuval Semo, Yaniv Moyal, Hanan Savyon, Erez Kahana  Director: Eytan Fox  Screenwriter: Avner Bernheimer  Distributor: Strand Releasing Home Video  Running Time: 67 min  Rating: NR  Year: 2002  Release Date: April 13, 2004  Buy: Video

Eric Henderson

Eric Henderson is the web content manager for WCCO-TV. His writing has also appeared in City Pages.

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