Tanked

Lebanon—the powerful and moving Israeli film that won the Golden Lion at the 2009 Venice Film Festival—takes place during the opening 24 hours of Israel’s 1982 war with Lebanon. Writer-director Samuel Maoz drew on his own experiences as a veteran of that war, and has challenged audiences with a story which walks a path of good and evil on the ground floor of war. The film opens with a calm blue sky set against countless rows of sunflowers blowing daintily in the wind. The solitary shot lasts a long time, but once it’s gone you need to keep this serenity in mind, as you are dropped inside the cramped, sweaty, and dank Israeli tank for the remainder of the film. Like the submarine film Das Boot, the closed quarters contribute to a sense of overall dread and tension, bringing you to the edge of your seat.

Through the eyes of Shmulik, the inexperienced gunner and one of four men who pilot the tank, we view the outside world only in limited bursts. Acting as the tank’s periscope, the camera is always used in a point-of-view fashion whenever the outside world is seen. Whatever Shmulik witnesses, however the tank bounces and rumbles, the camera is inside looking out. Director Maoz uses this visual trick to bring attention to what we observe, for good or bad. Seeing what was there one minute, cutting away back into the tank, and then looking out again strikes a stark “before and after” that resonates strongly. Images such as a paratrooper bleeding to death, or a woman wandering through the wreckage that was once her home, remain burned into your mind. Director of Photography Giora Bejach does an excellent job of setting two distinct tones, one for the murky world inside the tank, and one of the external chaos that escalates at each turn.

As the mission progresses, the pressures of war begin to penetrate the tank both metaphorically and physically. The film makes you question exactly what is going on and why, because there is no context given for this war beyond the often graphic violence, and in one case, stark nudity. Syrian and Lebanese fighters are seen as ruthless, and the Arab-Christian Soldiers of Fortune who are ostensibly helping the Israelis appear just as twisted. Commanders in the Israeli army are flawed and faceless, barking orders over the radio which send their troops further into harm’s way. Only the Israeli soldiers themselves, the individual men who are swept into circumstances beyond their control, are painted as compassionate and human. Like the recent Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker, the war at large is not as important as the individual soldier, putting the audience in the soldier’s position, through the ringer of anxiety with which they live or die. The tank, a heavily fortified but not impenetrable shell surrounding the soldiers, is a metaphor for Israel itself. But the tank, like Israel, keeps moving forward no matter what happens, hoping to return to moments of clear blue sky and sunflowers.

Lebanon is being released by Sony Pictures Classics in the US on August 6, 2010 and is rated R.

Saul Sudin is a filmmaker and critic who resides in Brooklyn, New York. You can learn more about him at SaulSudin.Weebly.com and PunkJews.com.