Never Get Out of the Tank

Blog by Keir Roper-Caldbeck | 14 May 2010

Fag butts floating in stagnant puddles on the floor; viscous liquids coursing down interior surfaces; constant bickering and shirking of responsibility amongst a small group of filthy men. The view of life inside an Israeli tank during the first Lebanon War, as presented in Samuel Maoz's Lebanon, will be as alien as it is claustrophobic to many viewers. Yet for those of us who have served our time in that great British institution, the Transit van filled with workers, there is much that is familiar. Our puddles and oozing fluids may have been spilt tea and Irn Bru, rather than blood and transmission oil, but the simmering resentments – strong enough to fog the windscreen - between men thrown into an uneasy intimacy are all too recognisable.

Of course, there is no windscreen in a tank. Lebanon gives us the sardine's eye-view of war. We are confined inside the tank for the duration of the film, and our view of events outside matches that of the gunner, peering through the cross hairs of his gun sight. Initially this can feel contrived, the hazy black circular frame around the image and the artful composition of the exterior scenes giving them the staged, over-legible feel of a silent film. Yet, slowly, the film begins to envelop us in its claustrophobic spell - a Das Boot shrunk in the wash – as the tank takes on the ambience of a human pressure cooker. The stupefying noise and violent pitching and rolling that accompany any movement leave us marvelling how men have ever been able to remain in these infernal machines; then a glimpse of the infantry outside, exposed to the maelstrom of battle, makes us understand why crews could come to love their tanks even as they hate them.

The growing filth and squalor in the tank is matched by the inertia that takes hold of its crew. The constant back chat that replaces a chain of command in a conscript army leads to every decision being debated to a standstill; the fear of what lies outside stuns them into apathy. The realism of Lebanon's portrayal of war can probably best be understood in the way that it never leaves us with even the tiniest wish to become soldiers. All those Vietnam films of the 1980s, even with their War-is-Hell message, gave us the sneaking suspicion that it would be pretty cool to be a grunt. Lebanon made me very happy that I live several time zones away from an active battlefield.

What the film does not give is any sense of the wider politics of the war, and this absence can be seen as a political position in an arena as charged as Israeli military policy. The appearance of a duplicitous and vicious Phalangist, who the Israeli soldiers cannot understand, comes dangerously close to providing a scapegoat for the horrors of the war. But as a portrayal of conscripted soldiers in combat, Lebanon is an effective - sometimes excruciatingly so - and powerful piece of cinema. For me, it also offered a glimpse into the behaviour of the Israeli backpackers that I've seen all over the world, clustered in tight-knit groups, obsessively eking our their funds, stoned out of their gourds. Most have just completed their National Service and, if they have gone through anything approaching what we see in this film, the need to stick with people who have had the same experiences, and to lose themselves for as long as possible, seems all too understandable.

Fag butts floating in stagnant puddles on the floor. Viscous liquids coursing down interior surfaces. Constant bickering and shirking of responsibility amongst a small group of filthy men.

The view of life inside an Israeli tank during the first Lebanon War, as presented in Samuel Maoz's Lebanon, will be as alien as it is claustrophobic to many viewers. Yet, for those of us who have served our time in that great British institution, the Transit van filled with workers, there is much that is familiar. Our puddles and oozing fluids may have been spilt tea and Irn Bru rather than blood and transmission oil, but the simmering resentments between men thrown into an uneasy intimacy are all too recognisable and strong enough to fog the windscreen.

Of course, there is no windscreen in a tank. Lebanon gives us the sardine's eye-view of war. We are confined inside the tank for the duration of the film, and our view of events outside matches that of the gunner, peering through the cross hairs of his gun sight. Initially this can feel contrived, with the hazy black circular frame around the image and the artful composition of the exterior scenes giving them the staged, over-legible feel of a silent film. Yet, slowly, the film begins to envelop us in its claustrophobic spell - a Das Boot shrunk in the wash – as the tank takes on the ambience of a human pressure cooker. The stupefying noise and violent pitching and rolling that accompany any movement leave us marvelling how men have ever been able to remain in these infernal machines. Then a glimpse of the infantry outside, exposed to the maelstrom of battle, makes us understand why crews could come to love their tanks even as they hate them.

The growing filth and squalor in the tank is matched by the inertia that takes hold of its crew. The constant back chat that replaces a chain of command in a conscript army leads to every decision being debated to a standstill - the fear of what lies outside stuns them into apathy. The realism of Lebanon's portrayal of war can probably best be understood in the way that it never leaves us with even the tiniest wish to become soldiers. All those Vietnam films of the 1980s, even with their War-is-Hell message, gave us the sneaking suspicion that it would be pretty cool to be a grunt. Lebanon made me very happy that I live several time zones away from an active battlefield.

What the film does not give is any sense of the wider politics of the war, and this absence can be seen as a political position in an arena as charged as Israeli military policy. The appearance of a duplicitous and vicious Phalangist, who the Israeli soldiers cannot understand, comes dangerously close to providing a scapegoat for the horrors of the war. But as a portrayal of conscripted soldiers in combat, Lebanon is an effective - sometimes excruciatingly so - and powerful piece of cinema. For me, it also offered a glimpse into the behaviour of the Israeli backpackers that I've seen all over the world, clustered in tight-knit groups, obsessively eking out their funds and stoned out of their gourds. Most have just completed their National Service and, if they have gone through anything approaching what we see in this film, the need to stick with people who have had the same experiences, and lose themselves for as long as possible, seems all too understandable.