Review: 'Lebanon'

Does the tank make the soldier?

In "Lebanon," the decrepit, lumbering, battle-tested war machine in which director Samuel Maoz traps us has been to hell and back. The same cannot be said for the young, scared Israeli conscripts manning the tank codenamed "Rhino." They have never seen action. That's about to change.

It's June 6, 1982, the first day of Israel's invasion of southern Lebanon. Rhino is leading the charge to clear an enemy-infested urban area of Lebanon. The crew, from a commander afraid to lead to a trigger-shy gunner, is not ready for combat and could do more harm than good.

Like the enthralling "Waltz with Bashir," "Lebanon" offers a harrowing personal account of a war that still haunts its veteran Israeli combatants. A tank gunner during the 1982 Lebanon War, Maoz retells his experience through his onscreen alter ego Shmulik (Yoav Donat), an anxious, morally conflicted man unable to stare death in the eyes. He freezes the first time he's ordered to kill - he can't bring himself to take another life, even if it belongs to men who want him dead - and it results in an Israeli fatality.

"Lebanon" doesn't boast the grand artistic ambitions of the evocatively animated "Waltz with Bashir," but Maoz comes up with a simple but powerful way for us to vicariously live through his "war is hell" cautionary tale. He chooses to keep the action inside Rhino's hot, damp, earsplitting confines - it's "Das Boot" in a tank. We only witness what's going on outside the tank via the gun sight Shmulik operates. While Maoz's reliance on the subjective camera occasionally gives "Lebanon" the feel of a first-person videogame - we're constantly placed in the uncomfortable position of engaging the enemy - it also heightens the chaos and confusion of the situation.

Every now and then the tank hatch opens, usually whenever a superior officer pays the crew a less-than-friendly visit. But the bright light that penetrates the dark tank is beyond blinding. This leads to a profound moment when a dead soldier's body, dubbed an "angel," is literally and metaphorically lifted out of the tank and spirited away from the madness below.

Maoz's goal is to show how far a man must be pushed before he willingly abandons his moral code in the name of survival. To this end, he resists making any political statements about the 1982 Lebanon War or Israel's military policies. Mentions of Israel's use of illegal phosphorus bombs during the war are dealt with in matter-of-fact fashion. Then again, given the constant threat of danger that the crew is under, it's impossible to imagine them taking time to argue the merits of invading Lebanon. Also, by taking politics out of the equation, Maoz makes "Lebanon" a universal look at the horrors of war.

"Man is steel. The tank is only iron" is scrawled inside Rhino. Maoz makes the tank as much a character in "Lebanon" as its fearful crew. When Rhino begins to lose its iron hide after taking a missile hit, and the engine groans in pain while oil seeps out of the walls like blood, it's down to the men inside to act like they are made of steel if they want to make it home alive. "Lebanon" may be a cathartic exercise for its director, but for the rest of life, it's a brutal but revealing depiction of urban warfare at its most dehumanizing.

'Lebanon'

Our grade: B+

Genres: Drama, War

Running Time: 93 min