With Lebanon, we visit the same battlefield as earlier in the animation film Waltz with Bashir by Ari Folman. Samuel Maoz is also a soldier who became a filmmaker and he also chose an unusual form for his memories of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Lebanon is entirely set inside a tank. Just like the soldiers themselves, we can only see the outside world through the gunner’s sight. The young crew of four – one of them is going to have to shoot at people for the first time – is ordered to assist a platoon in clearing a town. What was supposed to be a tourist outing quickly turns into a chaotic nightmare with plenty of civilian casualties, banned phosphorus shells and Falangists as dubious allies.
A claustrophobic tour de force with which Maoz consciously distances himself from war cliches. In Venice it won the Golden Lion.
Film details
- Country of production
- Israel
- Year
- 2009
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2010
- Length
- 94"
- Medium/Format
- 35mm
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