“Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life” has a somewhat sensationalist appeal: It’s a documentary about the rise and fall of the eponymous Israeli gay porn superstar. But the director, Tomer Heymann, finds idiosyncratic insights within typical narrative beats about fame and power — two mercurial things that, for the film and Agassi himself, don’t exist in a vacuum. Heymann situates the notion of celebrity in the context of not just performance and gay culture but also familial intimacy, with striking detail.
Agassi, now retired, shot to fame after appearing in the Lucas Entertainment gay porn film “Men of Israel” in 2009, and Heymann documents the actor’s aggressive rise to notoriety. He Skype calls his mother from Berlin frequently, even as his stardom intensifies. She’s caring and supportive, albeit long distance. She approves of his awards-show garments (harness, lace garters, heels) through the computer. It’s with her that he puts on pause his craving of being wanted and his desire to perform. (“Jonathan Agassi,” after all, is a pseudonym, a character.) In contrast, he does not like talking about his absentee homophobic father, to whom he refers by first name. That Heymann outlines Agassi’s family dynamics with such detail facilitates a dialogue between the two parts of Agassi’s life: his gay pornography and his home.
“Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life” achieves an impressive level of formal closeness with its subject while maintaining a critical distance from him, following his personal moments closely without over-sentimentalizing interactions. The film mostly abstains from judgment. When Agassi is alone, Heymann catches the performer vacillating wildly between self-awareness (about performance, desire) and naïveté. And when things fall apart, the safety of mom is there, waiting.
Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life
Not rated. In English and Hebrew, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. In theaters.
