Lebanon Samuel Maoz opens with a shot of a sunflower field, properties in the light of day. Nothing happens for a few moments in silence, and then, gradually, a sort of metallic hum, far, begins to be felt. While the noise, that of a tracked vehicle, it becomes gradually a looming din the wind begins to blow, shaking violently sunflowers. It seems the title of the film, and suffered a heavy detachment of mounted film plunges the picture into the dark interior of a tank. The door of the circular water tower property reflected on the bottom of the passenger compartment is opened, and a soldier enters: the action starts. A caption warns us that in 1982, June 6, at the dawn of the first day of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and the camera will remain for most of the rest of the movie within this vehicle from the war, in a suffocating darkness.
A well-defined mode of perception is the exact center of the beautiful film Maoz, who won the Golden Lion 2009: monocular vision. E 'dark reflection in the circle that just gives us a clue: the opening narrow and uncomfortable, the only passage between the interior and exterior of the car, it makes a pair with another circular aperture, the viewfinder hence the Young guns Shmulik (Yoav Donat), just entered the service, keep the movements outside of the car and identify the targets. There is another way of seeing what happens out there, and the forces directing the viewer over and over again in the eyes of the mutilated boy through the viewfinder: a kind of artificial subjective, a cage in which the human visual perception merges with that of the war machine - or, rather, remains captive. The dull circle of the viewfinder does not allow more than simple shifts in the lateral or overhead, and a very small range of magnification, with the rough visual aid Shmulik need to do their work, which is identify and eliminate threats from outside, without fail, when ordered. But the boy does not seem to be up to the task: Shmulik use the viewfinder as an instrument of vision, and nothing seems to escape what is happening outside, but when it's time to aim and fire the young man can not pull the trigger to kill, overwhelmed by their emotions. And that's how Lebanon says the absurdity of war: this desire to reduce the human stereoscopic, with its breadth and its depth and simplicity of a horrible one-eyed, or, metaphorically, to remove from their supporters any remaining humanity and emotion and individuality, turning them into mere machines squeezed into well-defined roles and tasks. Why the war to each other that does not require the maintenance of an assigned role, and with it a position, and then obedience to orders received. Claims, the war, to oppose all'imprendibile complexity of reality with a few simple rules, always equal to themselves in time and space. The result of this claim was not long, however, to be recognized in all its atrocities, inside that viewfinder: I am death, blood, dismembered bodies and the torment of the absurd consequences of mindless violence will simplistic.
E ' for this reason that the war can not triumph: his attempt to control the chaos, from the inside face of metal housings trucks, military uniforms or ranks only creates more chaos. And it is the basic condition of humanity? Disorder, such as emotions, you can not control a long time: soon in fact - while the rigid and impassive Gamil, commander of the platoon to which the wagon is to support, comes and goes through the turret or you hear from the radio board taking orders and giving directions to follow - the situation began to plummet. Both inside and outside the ranks of the wagon, like individual psychology, jump in the air the inability to withstand the pressure, or rather, the compression that war produces. The tension increases dramatically, partly because of a Syrian soldier who first on the outside hits the tank with a rocket launcher, damaging it severely, then captured and taken prisoner, is put in chains in the cockpit. And 'This is the most obvious and yet another sign confirming the presence of the enemy, invisible, hidden but powerful, it is increasingly becoming a threat looming over time, while the instructions from the Israeli command become increasingly vague and the presence of the officer Gamil becomes increasingly blurred, to vanish completely. Left to themselves, with their war machine damaged and isolated in a hostile area, the four Israeli soldiers, the crew can then only rely on his instinct, the most irrational and uncontrollable nature. Will Shmulik, who from the beginning had led to confusion and anxiety because of his irrepressible emotion, the only one to say something about themselves and their past history with his grotesque but deeply personal and sincere will temporarily relieve the boy in mates the unbearable weight of events, and the same Shmulik has proved bearer of relief and mercy even to the Syrian prisoner, finally able to rescue the wagon. After I opened the door of the tower and be released first by the war machine, the blue light of morning the young man will stop to watch the opening sequence of the sunflower field, back now to his property alone.
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