Movie: Lebanon (Samuel Maoz, 2009, Israel, 94 min.) 
Date: Feb 4, 2010
Rating: 
(very impressive anti-war film, no one’s on the side of the angels and the devil’s inside us all)
Plot: June, 1982 – The First Lebanon War. A lone tank and a paratroopers platoon are dispatched to search a hostile town..
Cast: The cast playing the tank crew showed us very effectively how it feels to be in a down-spiralling shituation. The weak commander was a bit too much over the top, but that’s almost negligable.
Visuals: Man, if you thought Das Boot was claustrophic, this movie mostly shows the point of view of the tank crew: through their visors. The image in one scene where the gunner aims to shoot an approaching car was disturbing – like the gunner, you could literally see the whites of the assaillant’s eyes.
The visuals were very, very effective, never a gimmick!
Conclusion: When selecting my movies for the festival I came across this movie and didn’t put it on my Must See list. That’s because most Middle East Conflict movies are either too one-sided or too preachy and they usually just get me horribly pissed off about the Shituation.
This movie was different for me – they showed the Real Thing about War: it’s the war that’s the Evil Beast, not Them-On-The-Other-Side. Both sides become victims as their actions always cause death and destruction without any glimpse of hope of some justification.
(StartOfRant). That old Kraut Bitch Riefenstahl should’ve thought about that a bit more, maybe then she’d have put her talents to some real use. (EndOfRant).
Very powerful, go see it.
Oh, and Eve/Blkbetty? Remember our mail discussion about Hurt Locker? I like the fact that HL is getting so much recognition and praise, but Lebanon is another movie that does the job much better.. Sorry 
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