A film in the form of a closed setting. The interior of an Israeli tank at the very beginning of the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The war does not only rage outside. It destroys those inside. It also transforms them, despite themselves. “Lebanon,” the film by Israeli director Samuel Maoz, winner of the Golden Lion at Venice in 2009, goes beyond mere historical testimony and surpasses the narrative of an initiatory journey: it literally dissects the hell of human relations when death begins to hover.
The analysis of the film offers three levels of interpretation: therapy carried out by its author, the attempt—not truly successful—of forcibly including the viewer, and the significance of this production for the State of Israel.
“Getting out of that tank took me over 20 years,” explains the man who, at 19 years old in May 1982, was the gunner of the first tank to cross the Israeli-Lebanese border. Schmolik is paralyzed by fear and endangers the crew. He discovers this war, the ruins of a village, the mangled bodies, the dazed faces of survivors, the cries of Lebanese survivors taken hostage by Palestinians, all through the single viewfinder: but the scopic distance does not protect him from horror and disgust. In a reversal of its purpose, the eye that must aim and adjust the lethal shot becomes a target and turns into the guilty receptacle of the suffering observed. In this film with undeniable therapeutic significance for its author, the trauma is evacuated through the signifier: outside, blood flows in abundance, but inside the armored vehicle, the dark walls ooze, and the soldiers “pee” one after the other to “relieve” themselves. Temporarily, one would suspect.
Bringing in the other to get out oneself. Crossed transference: “I chose to place the spectator in the tank,” to “share what the soldiers feel,” explains Samuel Maoz. One quickly senses the author’s haunting obsession to involve the audience, even subjecting them to this forced coexistence in this confined space. Hence the difficulty, he admits, of choosing “a classic dramatic structure.” The filmmaker claims inspiration from “Apocalypse Now.” One thinks rather of “The Wages of Fear.” Who else “enters” the tank? The corpse of an Israeli soldier, who by the impurity of death, becomes “untouchable”—a sign of the impasse between submission to religious norms and earthly humanism—and a Syrian prisoner more worried about being captured by the Lebanese Phalangists than remaining under the guard of the IDF. Above all, the comings and goings in this tank of an Israeli officer speak for themselves: this combat professional embodies the incessant reminder of paternal injunction, respect for order, and command power. In vain. The director repeatedly emphasizes the minimal grip of this traditional embodiment of Israel on the demotivated young soldiers. Quite a symbol.
“After twenty years, one can talk about things without fear,” confides the director. The true dimension of this film probably appears on this third level: through its new cinema of the last ten years, which questions without concessions religion, sexuality, and the omnipresence of war in the daily life of the State of Israel (“Kadosh” by Amos Gitai in 1999, “Walk on Water” and “The Bubble” by Eytan Fox in 2004 and 2007, “Waltz with Bashir” by Ari Folman in 2008, “Eyes Wide Open” by Haim Tabakman in 2009) Israel asserts with “Lebanon” its underlying desire for a pause coupled with a profound introspection.
Displeasing to the advocates of peace at all costs, yet one might question the sometimes tearful pacifism of the script: a massive symptom that makes it debatable, “suspicious” the detractors of Israel are sure to scream. The “audience analyst” the other night was, moreover, wary: perhaps not without reason. In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, did not President Barack Obama primarily speak of war?
