FILM CHALLENGE: 95) Lebanon

95) Lebanon

Director: Samuel Maoz

Year: 2010

Plot Summary: June, 1982 - The First Lebanon War. A lone tank and a paratroopers platoon are dispatched to search a hostile town - a simple mission that turns into a nightmare. The four members of a tank crew find themselves in a violent situation that they cannot contain. Motivated by fear and the basic instinct of survival, they desperately try not to lose themselves in the chaos of war.

Setting a film entirely within the constraints of a tank is a brave move from filmmaker Samuel Maoz. Yet this claustrophobic view of the war between Israel and Lebanon is one of the most powerful, disturbing and memorable movies this genre has ever produced.

The film not only explores warfare from the viewpoint of those who are within the tanks and the day to day struggles that these men are forced to live through. It's more of an examination of how these how young men are suddenly thrown into battle and now hold the difference between life or death at their fingertips. The main drama in Lebanon is not its action or its enigmas, it's watching these young men make unthinkable decisions and the moral dilemmas that they suffer from as a result of this. You will watch it with your heart in your throat as they have to decide whether to pull the trigger on a van driver who may or may not be innocent, have to whether to kill an entire family being held hostage in order to stop a firing gun man or have to disobey commands in order to protect themselves.

Setting it entirely inside a tank means that there are no distractions from the soldiers and their moral issues. There's no explosions or gunfire to take your mind away from them, there's no exploration of the reasons why they are even there. Lebanon shows you with little subtext just how awful being a soldier really is. How these are human beings with families, personalities and real lives who are forced to live every day like it could be their last and who are forced to, when the time comes, end someone else's life.

Therefore, it's one of the most powerful anti-war statements that has ever been made. And, let's face it, Maoz is someone who clearly knows that he's talking about in that respect. Lebanon, after all, is very much an autobiographical piece of work.

The characters and how much of an effect they have on you is thanks to both Maoz and his terrific writing and the entire cast who make their characters so believable. There are moments, in fact, when you almost forget that Lebanon is a fictional film they are both so good. When the final scenes roll around therefore, in which the tank's driver, Yigal, cries for his mother and the group's commander reminisces on high school memories, it's impossible to feel anything other than sympathy and heartache for these soldiers and any others who are currently fighting a war somewhere in the world.

This, in fact, is another strong point about Lebanon: While it's set in the 1980s in the war between Israel and Lebanon, this story could be set in any conflict in any era and still have the same story. It's universal message enforces the fact that, regardless of what you're fighting for or who you're fighting against, it's real human beings who, in the end, have to suffer.

It also contains one of the most breathtaking moment in any film you'll see in 2010 as the tank's sight examines posters in a crumbling travel agency of London, Paris and Los Angeles.

It'll leave you split in two, but Lebanon a war movie that demands, no, needs to be watched.

5/5

By Daniel Sarath with 3 comments