Lebanon: movie review
鈥�Lebanon,鈥� written and directed by Samuel Maoz, is the latest in a line of Israeli movies, along with 鈥淏eaufort鈥� and 鈥淲altz With Bashir,鈥� dealing with wartime conflict, remorse, and retribution. Like 鈥淏ashir,鈥� the film was made by an active participant in the war with Lebanon, and some of its power no doubt derives from this immersion.
But it would be misleading to place too much emphasis on Maoz鈥檚 background. For one thing, great war films 鈥� most of them, in fact 鈥� have been made by directors who were never close to a battlefield. Probably the greatest American novel about war, 鈥淭he Red Badge of Courage,鈥� was written by Stephen Crane before he ever saw a battle zone.
There鈥檚 a bit of 鈥淭he Red Badge of Courage鈥� in 鈥淟ebanon,鈥� which is set on the first day of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and is shot almost entirely from inside the cramped quarters of an Israeli tank. One of the soldiers, the highly agitated driver Yigal (Michael Moshonov), has to face a similar reckoning as the young soldier in Crane鈥檚 novel. Under life-threatening attack, how courageous will he be?
Maoz may have drawn on his own experiences in the making of this film, but he鈥檚 also drawn on quite a few tropes from standard war
movies. The claustrophobic dankness of the tank鈥檚 interior seems modeled on the submarine from 鈥�Das Boot.鈥� The four soldiers inside the tank, all in their 20s, are characterized only enough to set them apart from one another. We never learn much about them beyond their defining traits: fear, bravery, cynicism, gallows humor. This is typically the way American war movies, particularly the ones made during World War II, display their wares, and it鈥檚 reductive of the true (and incredibly messy) experience of battle.
The shallow characterizations are especially jarring because, for an hour and a half, we are cooped up with these guys. The only window into the outside world is through the viewfinder of the new gunner, Shmulik (Yoav Donat). Every once in a while someone drops into the tank from the outside world 鈥� most conspicuously the martinet Israeli commander Gamil (Zohar Shtrauss) and later, a Syrian hostage (Dudu Tassa), and the fanatic Phalangist (Ashraf Barhom), who gleefully threatens him with imminent torture.
These drop-ins, like much of the drama inside the tank, have the effect of theatrical set pieces. In fact, 鈥淟ebanon鈥� would probably work as well, or better, as a stage piece (though I鈥檓 not sure who its audience would be 鈥� fans of Sartre鈥檚 鈥淣o Exit鈥� maybe?).
The straightforwardness of 鈥淟ebanon鈥� stands in stark contrast to 鈥淲altz With Bashir,鈥� where director Ari Folman employed animation and a mind-bending mood-memory structure to pull us right inside the otherworldly horrors of war. In addition to being emotionally devastating, that film was also a furious intellectual argument about the rightness and wrongness of that particular intervention.
鈥淟ebanon鈥� takes a far less particularized view of war 鈥� a supposedly 鈥渦niversal鈥� view. But just because these young men are experiencing what, in a sense, all young men in war experience does not make it 鈥渂etter鈥� than movies that take a sharper political stand. In some ways, it makes it more generic.
Despite the film鈥檚 staginess and conventionality, Maoz does a powerful job capturing the countenances of his soldiers in resonating close-ups. These men have that awful young-old look that you often see in wartime photos and documentaries of raw recruits. The Israeli soldiers in 鈥淟ebanon鈥� look right at us and they seem both beseeching and accusatory. They are trapped inside something that is far more harrowing than a tank.
Rated R for disturbing bloody war violence, language including sexual references, and some nudity.
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