In making a list of my favorite gay movies in 2001, I suggested that a gay movie is a movie that sleeps with other movies (so that most movies are gay, and those of Quentin Tarrantino especially so). Two of the movies that 2002 Israeli movie "Yossi and Jagger," shot in nine days with a $20,000 budget(!) sleeps with in my mind are Samuel Fuller's Korean War movie "The Steel Helmet" (especially for feelings expressed too late) and Robert Aldrich's World War II movie Attack! (especially for the lack of official co-operation in its making). All three movies portray sending already exhausted soldiers on missions that are badly conceived if not altogether pointless.

"Yossi and Jagger'' is also a love story, with the love between two front-line army officers. And it starts as a droll military comedy in the vicinity of "M*A*S*H." The first endeavor is burying spoiled food, followed by intraservice gay and straight sexual couplings: the unit's commander Yossi (the burly Ohad Knoller) and Lior (called "Jagger" for his rock-star good looks, played by the very long-eyelashed Israeli television star Yehuda Levi) out in the snow, a brutish colonel (Sharon Raginiano) and Goldie (Hani Furstenberg), a member of his staff in the bunker where Yossi's unit is stationed on some mountainous part of the Israel/Lebanon border. Then there is a comic chow-down on "meatball sushi" concocted by Yaniv (Erez Kahana) with some joking about homosexuality between Jagger and his platoon and the unsuccessful attempt by Yossi to persuade the colonel that his men need rest.

Another of the female soldiers the colonel has brought along, Yaeli (Aya Steinovitz) tells Goldie about wanting Jagger and is overheard by Ofir (Assi Cohen), who badly wants her for himself and knows that Jagger does not. The soap opera and comedy melt away after the colonel and his female assistants go. The unit that has been playing in their bunker has to go out to wait for an ambush anyone coming out of Lebanon.

As a war movie, "Yossi and Jagger" is unusual in that the troops never see an enemy. Being set in the Middle East, enemies that are seen are not the only danger. The ambush veers far from the colonel's plan, and the movie ends with great restraint among mourners for a casualty. All of this is compressed into 62 minutes. What makes it, in my opinion, a great movie is the final scene. Its effectiveness owes something to the disjunction between playful memories of goofy costumes and Jagger's favorite pop music with nearly overwhelming present ache. The song says, "You can cry sometime, when something breaks inside" but the bereaved are not able to.

There is little back-story, but the brief movie shows a range of individual differences (not least in sexual orientation) among a small group in a space almost as confined as a submarine and then out in a dark snowfield and in a Tel Aviv living-room.

The movie is based on a true story of love and death in the Israeli Defense Force. "In Your Soul," the song that plays a major role within the movie, is also performed by Ivri Lider, aka Rita, as a music video on the DVD. The music video is unsubtitled, but the lyrics are subtitled in the movie's last scene.

The DVD includes some trailers for other movies, including "Quemada Plata" (Burnt Money) the other portrayal of love between a stolid man and a more passionate man doomed to die that I would add to my favorite gay movies list. Unfortunately, it is not a very good trailer.

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This is a(nother) contribution to this year's Gay Freedom Day (aka LGBT Pride) writeoff . For other contributions to this year's writeoff, see her profile page .


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older