The sorrow of war

Four soldiers spend the first night of the 1982 Lebanon War in their tank, on the campaign’s sidelines: This is the basic premise of Israeli film "Lebanon", which won the Golden Lion Award in the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.

During that night, the soldiers undergo a series of traumatic experiences. I saw the movie when it was screened during the Jerusalem Film Festival in July of this year. Throughout the movie, I found myself sitting with clenched fists, tense to the point of pain. I would like to explain why.

As opposed to the impression created by the movie’s name, "Lebanon" is not a political film. It’s an anti-war movie, just like any real film about war is an anti-war movie. Shmulik Maoz, who wrote the script and directed the film, translated a reality that he personally experienced into cinematic language.

The result is so authentic and so charged that at some points I felt as though I was the fifth soldier in the tank. The engine’s sound pounded my temples. The machinegun fire made me jump. The smell of the oil on the tank’s floor made me dizzy.

The soldiers are scared. They are scared because before that night they never experienced combat. They are scared because for the first time in their lives they encountered death face to face; the death of our forces, the death of their forces, the death of random civilians, and other horrors stemming from combat. They are also scared because they discover that behind the arrogant, all-knowing façade, their commanders are no less frightened.

In heroic war movies – the Americans produced dozens of those during and after World War II – the machineguns fire ceaselessly and never miss: Every bullet hits right on target. The fighters are efficient, disciplined, and focused. Yet these are propaganda films.

In real wars, everything that could go wrong goes wrong: The engine fails to start, the machinegun fails to fire, and when it finally fires it does not always distinguished the good guys from the bad guys. The fighters are tense, confuse, and argue amongst themselves during breaks. "Lebanon", the film, attempts to tell the story of war the way it really is.

It is a movie that is tough to watch. It is a must-see film.

We may find irony in the fact that the less successful Israeli wars were, the more successful were the movies produced about them. The 1982 Lebanon War is perhaps a clear example: It was born in sin and lasted 18 years beyond what it should have. What did it give us, with the exception of death, bereavement, and ruin on both sides? It gave us Hezbollah (and at the time this is written also four high-quality movies: "Two Fingers from Sidon", "Beaufort", "Waltz with Bashir", and "Lebanon".)

Yet we must not get confused. The fundamental state of the region requires Israel to live on its sword. It’s difficult, it’s cruel, and it often involves terrible pain to others and terrible pain to ourselves, yet running away from battle is not a solution.

We can understand the joy that overwhelmed the film’s creators when they were told about winning the Golden Lion. They deserve it. Nonetheless, it would be proper to remind them (and also the creators of "Waltz with Bashir", which won the Golden Globe,) that these wonderful achievements were born out of trauma – their personal trauma, and our national trauma.

I have no intention to rain on their parade. I only wish to make note that this joy involves, in an oh-so-Israeli manner, great sorrow.