Lebanon (2009)

Lebanon (Hebrew: לבנון‎; Lebanon: The Soldier's Journey in the UK) is an Israeli war film directed by Samuel Maoz. It won the Leone d'Oro at the 66th Venice International Film Festival, becoming the first Israeli-produced film to have won that honour. In Israel itself the film has caused some controversy. The film was nominated for 10 Ophir Awards, including Best Film. The film also won the 14th Annual Satyajit Ray Award.

Maoz based the film on his experience as a young Israeli conscript during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. It has been described as an anti-war movie by British newspaper The Guardian.

Synopsis

The film depicts warfare as witnessed exclusively from the inside of a tank. The crew's window to the outside world is a gunsight. As a way of adding realism to the effect, every change in the horizontal and vertical viewing directions is accompanied by the hydraulic whine of the traversing gun turret. The film is set during the 1982 Lebanon War. There are four Israeli soldiers inside: the driver in the tank's hull, the loader, the gunner and the commander in the turret. For part of the time there is also the body of a dead Israeli soldier (kept there until it is airlifted away), a Syrian POW, a visiting higher officer, and a visiting Phalangist (Lebanese Maronite Catholic allied with Israel) who threatens the POW with torture and a gruesome death.

Actors