It's a Gas, Gas, Gas

Yana's Friends looks at love in the age of war and gas masks.

In the weeks and months to come, when that Israeli-issued gas mask you bought on impulse sometime in September starts gathering dust and buyer's regret begins to set in, take heart. According to the new movie Yana's Friends, those things make terrific sex aids. Now, before you go thinking too far down in the gutter, use of the masks in such a fashion doesn't involve wearing them in any physically inappropriate way. But when Iraqi missiles fly through the air, and fear's aphrodisiac properties kick in, a reminder that one doesn't have to wear anything but the mask can really kick-start the ol' romance machine.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves: The Gulf War, and ensuing masked intercourse, doesn't happen until the third act, so it's as well to focus on the film's story. Yana (Evelyne Kaplun) is a Russian Jew new to Israel with her husband Fima (Israel Demidov). Shortly after they make their residence in a rundown building with a cantankerous landlady (Dalia Friedland) and wacky roommate Eli (Nir Levi), a womanizer with U.S. film school aspirations, the husband bails with the $20,000 loan he's taken from an Israeli bank, and starts a business back in Russia. Yana tries to follow him, but can't leave the country without a statement from the bank that she's free of all local debts, which she isn't, having co-signed Fima's loan. As she tries to make a break for it anyway, we get a good look at that famous Israeli airport security, when this slight woman is tackled by several guards and strip-searched. Eli, who's not such a bad guy after all, bails her out of detention but not debt.

You can see where this is going, and one could argue that we have indeed seen it, as recently as when it was in English and titled Someone Like You, or even prior to that; take away the Israeli setting, and the concept seems very familiar. Care to bet on whether the secretly sensitive camera-wielding womanizer will ultimately get it on with the all-sensitive fish out of water?

What saves Yana's Friends is, in part, the setting, but also the trappings. If this were a Hollywood film, the issue of abortion wouldn't come up. Or sex with gas masks. Chances are good that the supporting characters wouldn't be as colorful either. In the film's major subplot, a family who make money by leaving their paralyzed grandfather (Moscu Alcalay) out on the street with an open hat for loose change come into conflict with a street musician (Shmil Ben-Ari) who works hard for spare coins, yet gets passed up by people who find the aging cripple more sympathetic. The feud between accordion player and old soldier initially appears to be pure comic relief, but deepens substantially when we delve into the families and backgrounds of all involved.

Looming eternally in the background is the specter of war, which finally arrives, only to depart almost as quickly as it came. The shadow remains, but people go on living their lives. Ultimately, Desert Storm brings everyone together despite their differences, and, without wanting to be utterly redundant here, that's a message that may resonate well with American audiences at this moment in time (or just encourage them to have an extra mask handy when company comes over).

Writer-director Arik Kaplun makes his feature debut with Yana's Friends, and while he could have picked a much better title (it sounds like a new WB sitcom starring Yakov Smirnoff), his hand is sure, and unlike his male lead, there's no need for him to pursue film school, where they'd undoubtedly teach him that abortion doesn't play well in the heartland. Yana's Friends swept Israel's version of the Oscars two years ago, and though it won't do as well here, it's an accomplished debut with heart, war and sex. In the age of paranoia, it just might be the perfect date movie.