Friday, July 12, 2013
Healing takes a long time, sometimes too long
There is no doubt today's Israeli film is a sequel, violating one of esrose.blog's main viewing criteria.
But it is a gay film and another "rule" is that all gay themed films catch a break.
This one
comes after the generally well received Jossi and Jagger (2002)
It is ten years after the death of Jagger in battle. Jossi is now an internist and has become a nebbish in the process of grieving, going further back into his closet. Hidden in his body to say nothing of his sadness.
Attempts to break out have little effect. Visiting Jagger's parents who do not want to hear about it, hooking up on the internet where his physical appearance is so different from his picture he gets rejected on the face of him. Finally, working himself into a stupor, he takes a vacation and good fortune strikes. Four soldiers need a ride and one of them is gay, out and proud.
A spark occurs. The young man pursues Yossi. It seems endlessly. It is hard not to get tired of Yossi's prolonged funk.
Finally, as predicted, the long period of denial and survivor's guilt breaks. Sex has a curative effect as it does in a majority of films, straight or gay, and we see a big smile and conversion. Convention will out. Romanticism will be redeemed. The Hollywood ending is observed. And, it has to be said, the Hollywood convention of not showing much gay sex at all looks to be the Israeli convention as well. "The straights" seem to get laid a lot more spectacularly than "the gays" which we know is the reverse of real life!
I could have done with a little more grappling with Yossi's demons, myself.
It turns out that the young soldier, quite hot, sees something in Yossi that even we do not except that we saw him in the first film and he is shown here in some photos. He was hot too.
I sort of expected a "year later" coda tacked on when Yossi would be hot again and "married" to the soldier who is just due to get out of the service at that time. But they did not do this.
The film was good enough but kind of boring and I could use, if they were going for romance, if not more hotness, a few more hearts and flowers.
This gets a 3 out of Netflix5. I am glad that I watched it even though it was, partly, out of a sense of obligation.
The rule about sequels is once again redeemed. I pay for my sins. I should have stuck with the first film and let the second one go.
