LEBANON (2009)

And you thought DAS BOOT/’81 was claustrophobic.  Award-winning film from Israeli writer/director Samuel Maoz takes a near abstract look at war, following (in tight close-up) a single tank carrying five hardened fighters and one barely trained newbie as they cross into Southern Lebanon during the 1982 war,  part of an ill-defined mission to destroy PLO bases and launching sites.*  Without a specific goal, their job merely to reach a designated contact point so they can pick up orders for the next designated contact point.  Between man and machine, things quickly begin to break down: misread oncoming vehicles (friend or foe?); planned and unplanned attacks; a comrade lost; banned weapons renamed so they can be ’legally’ used; a chaotic village assault where enemy Arabs use civilian women & children as ‘living’ shields, encouraging collateral (and non-collateral) damage by Israelis; that tank newbie unable to pull the trigger (literally) having previously shot at nothing more dangerous than empty barrels; all while the tank turns into a abattoir of human filth and rotting offal, their view becoming ever more restricted to a tank POV.  No heroes or heroics, but with opportunistic ‘Phalangist’ warriors grabbing the prize for worst-of-the-worst.  Fortunately, the mission, which opens & closes on the same ironic shot, reduced on screen to only 90 minutes of horror.  But you’ll not forget a searing minute in this brilliantly shot and acted journey thru some of Dante’s darkest circles of Hell.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *For a bigger picture on the war, the remarkable animated documentary WALTZ WITH BASHIR/’08.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/08/waltz-with-bashir-2008.html