As Lebanon opens
theatrically, its
director reflects on
his war experience
and what it took to
turn it into a film.
•
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In Lebanon, the viewer is trapped inside
an Israeli army tank with its four-man
crew. Pictured, Zohar Strauss as Jamil
George Robinson
Special to the Jewish News
S
amuel Maoz was only 20 years old
when the first Lebanon War broke
out. He was a gunner in a tank
crew and at 6:15 a.m. on the morning of
June 6, 1982, he killed a man for the first
time in his life.
"It's very sharp and clear in my mem-
ory," he says quietly. He's sitting in a hotel
room in Manhattan, tall, gaunt, balding.
Now in his late 40s, he is calm and seem-
ingly detached, as if he is telling a story he
once heard somewhere. But it's a story he
lived and then lived with for almost two
decades before he was able to turn it into a
remarkable film, Lebanon, which will play
at the Detroit Film Theatre in the Detroit
Institute of Arts during the weekends of
Oct. 1-3 and 8-10.
"The rest of the people I killed in the
war are just a blue he continues. "But not
the first one'
In Lebanon — outside of the opening
and closing shots of a sunflower-filled
field and a sky so blue it almost hurts to
look at — the viewer is trapped inside an
Israeli army tank with its four-man crew.
The only exposure to the world outside is
through the gunner's sights or the tank's
viewing devices. The only light sources
inside the tank are below the crew, casting
an unearthly orange glow on their faces
as if they were standing beside a huge
devouring furnace. The only change comes
when someone opens the hatch, flooding
the tank with glaring white light from
above, as in some no-less-alien visitation
from the sky. Maoz traps the viewer in a
world of limited perception, a world in
which events are seen only fitfully and in
fragments.
The result is that Lebanon is more than
just a good first feature film; it is a throw-
back to the kind of profoundly question-
ing war film that forces an audience to
look uneasily into a mirror.
Of course Maoz had been through
extensive training before he went into
combat but, as he dryly notes, "It's not
normal to kill."
War, he explains, teaches you otherwise.
"When you're in training, it's just toys
for big boys:' he says. "We shot up steel
barrels filled with gasoline. Beautiful fire-
works. We tried out a new laser system for
sighting and aiming at targets. It was like
a big game: 'You are dead. So I'm dead. So
f--- it. I did my best until the war."
But there is, he says with a sigh, "a huge
difference between serving in the army
and being in a war;' and he articulates that
difference with a quiet intensity not unlike
the film's.
"This is the trick of war;' he says. "You
take a human being and he undergoes a
metamorphosis. Your most basic instinct
takes control of you. You won't be you any-
more. The basic rules of life aren't there
anymore. Then the war can rely on you as
a soldier. You're not afraid anymore; you
don't have plans anymore. You are just sur-
viving and that's what you do."
The change he underwent once he was
in combat was palpable.
"You lose your sense of taste, but you
see and hear very clearly, more than
before he recalls. "You can sleep five or 10
minutes and then function for 24 hours.
"You are falling into a jungle'
Maoz remembers an officer telling him
that when he went into Lebanon, there
would be people on the balconies of the
apartment buildings.
"You can't open the option of morality:'
he says. "He told me, 'On 50 percent of
those balconies you'll have soldiers with
anti-tank missiles. The other half will be
ordinary families. You see, there are no
good guys or bad guys — you need to kill
to stay alive."
Maoz started making short films when
he was a boy. He graduated from the
Beit Zvi Academy of the Arts in 1987. He
wanted to tell the story of what had hap-
pened to him in Lebanon for his first film,
but every time he sat down to try and
write the screenplay, "I smelled burning
flesh." He released a few short films, but he
earned his living as a production designer
on other people's movies and TV shows.
"I made a living:' he says. "It was work I
could do hard and fast to make money."
Occasionally he would make another
attempt to write the screenplay. The same
thing would happen.
"I felt, 'I'm not ready yet:" he says. "I
need to process the feelings in a cold way.
As long as I'm smelling that smell, I'm not
ready."
Then the second Lebanon War came.
One of his best friends asked Maoz to talk
to his son, who wanted to volunteer for
combat. He was an only child and, there-
fore, was not required to go into a combat
unit, but the boy wanted to fight. Maoz
shared his darkest experiences with the
young man, but couldn't sway him. The
boy was killed shortly after he went to war.
Now Maoz was ready.
"Maybe I can save a life he remembers
thinking.
Now, he says, he felt he had to write the
screenplay. And make the film.
The result is one of the most powerful
debut features in recent memory — a
stark, claustrophobic look into the worst
place in the human psyche.
"It was a release to make the film," Maoz
says, quickly adding, "It's important to say
that that wasn't the reason for making the
film. It was a need to find some under-
standing. You have to realize that when
you've killed in war, you feel guilty, you feel
bad inside. You think, 'I have a responsibil-
ity; death will come because of me. But I
didn't say, `This is going to be my therapy.'
But now I can accept myself, be more
complete and more myself' ❑
Lebanon will be screened at the
Detroit Film Theatre at the Detroit
Institute of the Arts 7 p.m. Friday
and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday,
Oct. 1-3; and 9:30 p.m. Friday and
Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday, Oct.
8-10. $6.50-$7.50. (313) 833-4005;
www.dia.org/dft.
September 30 • 2010
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