NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL: Returning to Lebanon, on the Front Lines

“Lebanon,” screening October 1-2 at the New York Film Festival. For more information click here.

Why is it, that the best war movies of recent years have come from filmmakers working in Europe and the Middle East? Just as Hollywood remains fixated on casting big movie stars and filming sweeping battle scenes, Europe’s given us films like “No Man’s Land,” “Waltz With Bashir” and “The Pianist,” quieter works that understand the ways in which a smaller story can have a larger impact.  

At this year’s New York Film Festival, we can add another title to that list of hits from across the pond: “Lebanon,” the stunning and confident combat thriller by Israeli director Samuel Maoz, which puts the audience into the cockpit of a tank during the first 24 tense and turbulent hours of the 1982 Lebanon War. It’s both a story about the tumultuous interpersonal relationships of the four army comrades as they plow headfirst into the storm across the border, and the confusion that reigns supreme among those in the Israeli ranks – as civilians blur together with combatants, and as the Falangists arrive on the scene, asserting authority over Israel’s combat operations. The chain of command starts to become unclear.

The Lebanon War, with its numerous players and dense historical context, is a complicated topic to explore, but Moaz succeeds in bypassing all of that confusing exposition by making this a far more intimate portrait about four young, scared and unprepared tank operators, all relatively ignorant of the issues at play. All but shielded from danger, they view the combat as passive observers through their viewfinder, directing our gaze through the chaos just as Jimmy Stewart did with his camera in Hitchock’s “Read Window.” And by telling the story in this fashion, Moaz makes “Lebanon” less a parsing of this specific conflict than a universal saga of young men thrust into untenable situations, working their hardest simply to survive. 

Few films have so bravely captured the anxiety of the front lines – the way that nerves rattle and shatter, and how a power vacuum in the war zone can result in atrocities that at the time seemed justifiable. Moaz focuses first on the chemistry of the unit, as they grapple with issues of authority. Then, as they enter more dangerous territory, we are shown the speed with which they must determine friend from foe, their finger always on the trigger. As the battle turns grim there’s even a moment of resignation, when a fighter thinks that all hope is lost, and a daring, last-second dash for safety when his pessimism is proven premature.

Having already won one of the top prizes at the Venice Film Festival, Sony Pictures Classics decided to pick up “Lebanon” for distribution, an exciting development that suggests it might have a decent chance of launching a campaign for a foreign film Oscar. I believe it’s an accomplishment on the level of “The Hurt Locker,” a claustrophobic nail biter as well as a fascinating, first-person account of what went on during the first hours of Israel’s invasion, that you’re going to be hearing a whole lot more about this year.

It screens Thursday and Friday nights; be one of the first to see it!