What war?

It's all about shagging in Yossi & Jagger

If it weren't for all the olive green Israeli Defense Force gear and guns, you would swear Yossi & Jagger was a summer camp movie, obsessed as it is with "hooking up."

Yossi & Jagger is an Israeli film set at a military outpost on the Israeli-Lebanese border. The film opens as a unit of young soldiers deal with one of the myriad tasks of a grunt's life: digging a trench, not for some strategic purpose but to use as a grave for the rotten food in their camp refrigerator.

Despite its exotic origin, the mood of Yossi & Jagger is frat house-carefree with some Dogme hand-held camerawork thrown in to up the art film ante. The soldiers' boyish excitement level spikes noticeably with the arrival of a visiting Colonel (Sharon Reginiano) and two female soldiers, the soulful Yaeli (Aya Koren) and the gleefully promiscuous Goldie (Hani Furstenberg), a gap-toothed minx with an eponymous crown of goldilocks.

After a preliminary shag with Goldie, the Colonel orders the soldiers to undertake an early morning ambush. But that potentially deadly mission barely registers in the general atmosphere of youthful joie de vie, as the soldiers dance to techno in their cramped quarters or eavesdrop on Yaeli and Goldie discussing what they want in men. Yaeli, the romantic of the two, pines for the sensitive Jagger (Yehuda Levi), while sexpot Goldie values the more carnal qualities of stamina and emotional disconnection.

But the hook of Yossi & Jagger is pretty boy Jagger's unattainability where Yaeli, or any other dark-haired beauty of the female persuasion, is concerned.

During a boyish romp in the snow set to cheerful music, director Eytan Fox establishes Jagger's previous engagement with the unit commander, macho Yossi (Ohad Knoller).

Yossi & Jagger may be the first application of the American "don't ask, don't tell" policy to the Israeli front. While some of the soldiers seem aware of the romance between the two men, most remain oblivious despite the shockingly close bunker the men share. One would think the perpetually alert sexual antennae of these bored soldiers might have picked up on any same-sex heavy-breathing in the room next door.

Although it deals with the fairly controversial material of gay romance in the closeted Israeli military, Yossi & Jagger is, mood-wise, about as straight and vanilla as they come. This wafer-thin romance manages to use its Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name as the principle hook in a film that can often feel juvenile and inconsequential.

The film's greatest virtue is how it depicts Yossi and Jagger's romance as astoundingly conventional and sweet — full of snowball fights, silly love songs and surreptitious dessert sharing.

Their relationship is especially touching compared to the hothouse randiness of the hetero-doings at base camp. While Goldie and the Colonel engage in quickie rutting and the Colonel jokes of weak-willed "faggots," Yossi and Jagger's love sets them apart from this often sullied society.

Any energy Yossi & Jagger does manage to wring out of its slight story (which breezes by in just over 60 minutes), is undoubtedly attributable to the charm of its two leads. Jagger's boyish expressiveness and longing for an uncloseted relationship contrasts nicely with Yossi's reticent cool.

Unfortunately, it is not until very late in the game that the real tragedy of Yossi and Jagger's love affair is revealed, when the inability of the men to be open about their relationship takes a cruel turn. But after all of the sexually charged, Degrassi Junior High frivolity, that emotionally devastating denouement is too little too late.

felicia.feaster@creativeloafing.com