KAOS: BFI Flare 2019: Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life

KAOS

BFI FLARE

L o n d o n L G B T Q + F i l m F e s t i v a l 2 0 1 9

"When a fresh-faced Jonathan Agassi hit the international gay porn scene in the late 2000s, he blew everyone else out of the water. Nothing short of a sensation, Agassi experienced a meteoric rise to fame, quickly becoming one of the most popular and prolific adult superstars in the business. Dividing his time between Berlin and Tel Aviv, Agassi supports his film career with live porn shows and escort work, making claims to have the best job in the world. But Agassi the performer and Agassi the person are two very different entities, and his euphoric professional highs are frequently countered by crushing personal lows. Bolstered by the unconditional support of his mother Anna, Agassi questions the nature of his fame and interrogates his self-destructive tendencies as he searches for a sense of happiness that continues to elude him. In his latest documentary, acclaimed filmmaker Tomer Heymann paints a fascinating portrait of a young man wrestling with loneliness, addiction and childhood traumas, and offers a probing, but never damning, insight into an industry that seems to promise so much." BFI Flare

The gay porn industry is not kind to its models. Even if you don't know about Joey Stefano, Erik Rhodes or Colin Black, or follow the gay porn gossip blogs, you already know this.

So we know, even before watching the trailer, that Jonathan Agassi's story won't be a happy one, and that the industry that has buoyed him, might also be his undoing, as it has been for so many others.

Or, is the opposite true, as the title of Tomer Heymann's film - Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life - suggests? Heymann leaves space for the audience to make up its own mind, but it's hard not to draw the conclusion that being a gay porn star is as demanding as it probably is corrosive.

Eight years in the making, the film covers the highs and lows in Agassi's life, both professional and personal. His mother is a hero, his father a devil. Russian pornographer Michael Lucas lives up to his sleazy reputation. And what of us, the audience? Is Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life further exploitation? Agassi has already given us his body; now, we get to pick over the bones of what's left.