Los Angeles Film Festival

Lebanon

Levanon

(France, Germany, Israel, Lebanon, 2009, 93 mins, 35mm)

Executive Producer: Gil Sassover
Producers: Moshe Edery, Leon Edery, Einat Bikel, Uri Sabag, David Silber, Benjamina Mirnik, Ilann Girard
Screenwriter: Samuel Maoz
Cinematographer: Giora Bejach
Editor: Arik Lahav-Leibovici
Cast: Yoav Donat, Itay Tiran, Oshri Cohen, Michael Moshonov, Zohar Strauss, Dudu Tasa, Ashraf Barhom, Reymonde Amsellem
Music: Nicolas Becker

Exploring the brutality of combat while simultaneously constructing a tense chamber-piece thriller, writer-director Samuel Maoz's Lebanon chronicles the first day of the 1982 Lebanon War from the perspective of four young Israeli soldiers manning a tank. Their initial mission—provide backup for a paratrooper unit in a seemingly resistance-free Lebanese village—soon turns deadly, forcing these inexperienced men to work together to stay alive.

The top prizewinner at last year's Venice Film Festival, the visceral Lebanon was inspired by Maoz's nightmarish experience as a novice tank gunner during the '82 conflict. Compressing the drama within the confines of an armored military vehicle, Maoz's film greatly benefits from its claustrophobic setting, but Lebanon's structural masterstroke comes from its limiting what the audience sees outside the tank to the gunner's viewfinder, not only enhancing the suspense but also calling into question how we ""view"" the physical and psychological damage of the battlefield. Emphasizing the personal over the political, Lebanon emerges as one of the new century's most revelatory war films, one that insists that we look at combat with fresh eyes.

Tim Grierson

Expected to attend: Samuel Moaz.

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