I'm not the first person to draw the parallel between this Israeli film and the German classic DAS BOOT. Instead of a submarine, the story takes place inside a tank. The claustrophobic environment creates tension by limiting our view of the horrors going on outside. While its use is more as a gimmick than DAS BOOT, it certainly makes for an engaging experience.
Shmulik (Yoav Donat) is the new gunner brought into the tank. It's his first taste of combat and he is scared out of his mind. Assi (Itay Tiran, BEAUFORT) is the commanding officer in the tank, but he is weak and his nerves are rattled. Hertzel (Oshri Cohen, AGORA) is the loader who questions every decision that Assi makes and only thinks about getting out of the war. Yigal (Michael Moshonov, LATE MARRIAGE) is the young driver who just wants his mother to know he is okay. Riding them every chance he gets is the commanding officer on the ground Jamil (Zohar Shtrauss, BEAUFORT), who makes it abundantly clear that the lives of the ground troupes are in the hands of the tank crew.
What is supposed to be a simple mission turns into a nightmare when the soldiers end up in the wrong area, which is controlled by a Syrian commando. A Syrian prisoner (Dudu Tassa) fighting for the Lebanese is stowed away in the tank. If he gets hostile, the tank crew is informed to give him morphine to calm him down. Word comes in that two Phalangists, Arab Christians fighting with the Israelis, will help them get out of the city. The Phalangist leader (Ashraf Barhom, CLASH OF THE TITANS) doesn't even seem to be able to read the map and after he talks to the prisoner morphine is certainly needed.
Director/writer Samuel Maoz, basing the film on his own experience in the Lebanon War in 1982, puts the viewer in the tank and into the POV of the crew at times. When they look out the scope, we see what they see. When a BMW comes racing toward them, Shmulik has a hard time firing because he can actually see the whites of the driver's eyes. At one point a Lebanese mother (Reymond Amsalem, RENDITION) stares directing into the scope and it puts chill over the scene, especially after the harrowing experience we just witnessed her go through.
Driven by a bombastic soundtrack, this war film doesn't really enlighten the audience on what it takes to operate a tank, but what it is like to be a scared young man stuck in one. Where DAS BOOT watched men doing their jobs, LEBANON watches men trying to simply attempt their job. They might be inside an armored vehicle, but it really doesn't make it any less frightening. Death can still come from anywhere. It's fitting that on the inside wall of the tank is painted this phrase — “Man is steel. The tank is only iron.”
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
