Eldritch
08-08-2010, 12:40 PM
An Israeli Tank Rolls North, Fumbling to War, in Lebanon
Lebanon, written and directed by Samuel Maoz, is not just the year's most impressive first feature but also the strongest new movie of any kind I've seen in 2010.
It's evident that the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Israel's fifth and least defensible war, has had a remarkable re-emergence in the nation's film industry. Like Ari Folman's groundbreaking animation Waltz With Bashir before it, Lebanon is a film by a traumatized veteran.
But where Waltz With Bashir is mainly concerned with the recollection of that trauma, Lebanon is predicated on restaging the traumatic event. Set, over the course of a 24-hour period, entirely inside an Israeli tank heading north on the war's first day, Maoz's cine memoir is at once political allegory and existential combat movie—Sartre's No Exit as directed by Sam Fuller.
Blunt, clamorous, and harrowing, Lebanon is also a formalist tour de force. As the Israeli soldiers never leave their tank, code-named Rhino, the movie is necessarily shot mainly in close-up and, except for the very end, all exteriors are scanned through the crosshairs of the tank's bombsight. The outside world is heard through the tank's steel plating or via crackling radio transmissions from distant headquarters. Individuals—a Syrian captive, a dying Israeli soldier, and, most often, the battle-hardened platoon leader Jamil—are intermittently lowered into, or lower themselves into, this moving dungeon. But for the four men inside, there is no escape.
GHWWH2bdowM
Lebanon is pure cinema, although with its dramatic entrances and exits and constant ensemble chatter, it could have been staged as a play. The concept is unrelenting, but Maoz does take a few liberties in the service of his overall aesthetic strategy. Civilians occasionally stare directly into the bombsight; mayhem and casualties appear in fragmenting close-up. Still, this pragmatic stylization is invariably trumped by the emphasis on physical discomfort, constant stress, and unthinking panic.
Like the 1982 West German submarine drama Das Boot or Anthony Mann's Men in War—but even more so—Lebanon is a movie about a particular condition, less a suspenseful narrative than an immersive experience. There is no space for anything but the present moment inside the tank. The men's lack of training—or, more likely, its irrelevance—is made evident early, when the tank's increasingly befuddled commander argues with his high-strung childhood buddy about whose job is more crucial and whose turn it is to stand watch. (That the commander is the stupidest member of the squad comes with the territory.) The tank's driver responds negatively to pressure while the newly assigned gunner, Shmulik, named for the filmmaker, proves unable to fire at a living target.
Full story here. (http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-08-04/film/an-israeli-tank-rolls-north-fumbling-to-war-in-lebanon/)
Lebanon, written and directed by Samuel Maoz, is not just the year's most impressive first feature but also the strongest new movie of any kind I've seen in 2010.
It's evident that the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Israel's fifth and least defensible war, has had a remarkable re-emergence in the nation's film industry. Like Ari Folman's groundbreaking animation Waltz With Bashir before it, Lebanon is a film by a traumatized veteran.
But where Waltz With Bashir is mainly concerned with the recollection of that trauma, Lebanon is predicated on restaging the traumatic event. Set, over the course of a 24-hour period, entirely inside an Israeli tank heading north on the war's first day, Maoz's cine memoir is at once political allegory and existential combat movie—Sartre's No Exit as directed by Sam Fuller.
Blunt, clamorous, and harrowing, Lebanon is also a formalist tour de force. As the Israeli soldiers never leave their tank, code-named Rhino, the movie is necessarily shot mainly in close-up and, except for the very end, all exteriors are scanned through the crosshairs of the tank's bombsight. The outside world is heard through the tank's steel plating or via crackling radio transmissions from distant headquarters. Individuals—a Syrian captive, a dying Israeli soldier, and, most often, the battle-hardened platoon leader Jamil—are intermittently lowered into, or lower themselves into, this moving dungeon. But for the four men inside, there is no escape.
GHWWH2bdowM
Lebanon is pure cinema, although with its dramatic entrances and exits and constant ensemble chatter, it could have been staged as a play. The concept is unrelenting, but Maoz does take a few liberties in the service of his overall aesthetic strategy. Civilians occasionally stare directly into the bombsight; mayhem and casualties appear in fragmenting close-up. Still, this pragmatic stylization is invariably trumped by the emphasis on physical discomfort, constant stress, and unthinking panic.
Like the 1982 West German submarine drama Das Boot or Anthony Mann's Men in War—but even more so—Lebanon is a movie about a particular condition, less a suspenseful narrative than an immersive experience. There is no space for anything but the present moment inside the tank. The men's lack of training—or, more likely, its irrelevance—is made evident early, when the tank's increasingly befuddled commander argues with his high-strung childhood buddy about whose job is more crucial and whose turn it is to stand watch. (That the commander is the stupidest member of the squad comes with the territory.) The tank's driver responds negatively to pressure while the newly assigned gunner, Shmulik, named for the filmmaker, proves unable to fire at a living target.
Full story here. (http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-08-04/film/an-israeli-tank-rolls-north-fumbling-to-war-in-lebanon/)