Confusion, terror, shock, and remorse threaten to rip apart a four-man unit of inexperienced Israeli soldiers jammed inside a tank during the first war in Lebanon. Their connection with the outside world is limited to what they can view through their periscopic gun sight, hear on their radio, or learn from an increasingly harried superior officer (Zohar Strauss of Eyes Wide Open) who drops in with orders and advice. Tragic errors compound the tension between them, and the soldiers’ dislocation and paranoia mount with the arrival of a Syrian prisoner who’s targeted by Phalangists. Samuel Maoz drew from his own war experiences to write and direct this searing drama, which ranks alongside Platoon and No Man’s Land as an antiwar statement and recalls the claustrophobic despair of Das Boot. In Hebrew and Arabic with subtitles.
Lebanon
R • 1 hour 33 min • 2009