A powerful and personal account of war on the front line, writer-director Samuel Maoz takes the viewer inside an Israeli tank to deliver an exhausting, original film.
A powerful and personal account of war on the front line, writer-director Samuel Maoz takes the viewer inside an Israeli tank to deliver an exhausting, original film.
The First Lebanon War - June, 1982. A lone tank is dispatched to search a hostile town that has already been bombarded by the Israeli Air Force. What seems to be a simple mission gradually spins out of control. Shmuel the gunner, Assi the commander, Herzl the loader and Yigal the driver are the tank's crew, four 20-something boys who have never fought in a war and are now operating a killing machine. Though trying to remain brave, the boys are pushed to their mental limits as they struggle to
survive in a situation they cannot contain, and try not to lose their humanity in the chaos of war. Writer-director Samuel Maoz's raw and visceral film is based on his own experiences as a twenty year old novice soldier serving in the Israeli army during the 1982 Lebanon war. Using his own vivid recollections to bring us inside an Israeli tank during the first 24 hours of the invasion, Maoz restricts the film's action entirely to the tank's interior and shows us the outside world only-as the four young soldiers themselves see it-through the lens of a periscopic gun sight. The cathartic process of writing and directing LEBANON allowed Maoz to finally free himself of the events that he had experienced twenty-five years earlier.-- (C) Sony Pictures Classics
We can smell the sweat, urine and diesel fuel in Lebanon. We can taste the exhaust, the metallic tang of explosive fumes from a shell ejected from the cannon.
There's a bit too much of the tight close-up of sweat- and soot-stained faces trembling with emotion and doubt, but there's no mistaking or escaping this movie's powerful impact.
Una aproximación a la traumática crueldad de un conflicto bélico narrada exclusivamente desde el interior de un tanque de guerra. La experiencia es tensa, agobiante y angustiante, casi como la guerra misma.
Physical, visceral, intimate, and even sensual, Lebnaon, a highlight of Israeli cinema of the past decade, is a combat film like no other war film you have seen before
Blood, sweat and oil...the only thing worse than the dark, hellish, odorous claustrophobia of the tank's innards is the tunnel vision afforded by the gun-sight...[Blu-ray]
It's a strong film, complex in many ways, and seems to me to come from a genuinely stricken conscience. But in its formal probity, Lebanon turns into a moral dodge.
While it captures the confusion and horror experienced by these young soldiers, what, after all, is it saying? That war brutalises soldiers? We know that.
Watching Lebanon is more poignant armed with the knowledge that we're witnessing Maoz's own experiences as a young Israeli soldier during the war -- he's the gunner of the story.
'Lebanon'. A gritty and visceral look at the war in the 1980s, geniusely directed purely from the viewpoint of a group of soldiers inside one tank, with their scope / viewfinder being the only link to the outside world.
March 28, 2011
c0up
Super Reviewer
Lebanon is quite a unique war film in that its shot entirely from the perspective of a turret controller of a tank. This gives the viewer a voyeuristic glance at war and highlights the crews contrast of emotions. On one hand they feel trapped and claustrophobic but on the other hand they feel safe and protected. This
all of course can be too much for a man, what with the heat, conflicting views and general madness and confusion that war brings. It does however make compelling viewing. A compelling, original and brilliantly devised film by Samuel Maoz - a director to look out for!
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