The palm-sized circular window is the only channel for soldiers to communicate with the outside world. Wherever the scope reaches, all human tragedies are magnified. The film adopts a circular composition most of the time, and the audience is like a soldier "trapped" in a tank, with no choice but to continue watching. From the very beginning of the film, director Maotz forces all viewers to jump into the tank with him, immerse themselves in it, and return to the bloody and brutal killing battlefield of the past. With the subjective perspective of the gunner moving up and down, every viewer can personally experience the anxious, heart-rending hesitation and pain between the inside and outside.
"Lebanon" portrays the chaos and complexity of the Middle East. The film inevitably deals with political issues. But most importantly, the director hopes to use the movie to depict the awakening of four young people in their early twenties. They suddenly find themselves in the cruel reality of killing civilians, and killing becomes what they must do. None of them are heroes, and none of them want to be. Their survival instincts and human values are in fierce conflict. This is a horrifying human tragedy.
In the first parts of the film, we are brought into a battlefield that is real enough: the figures reflected in the oil and sewage puddles range from clear to indistinct, and the filth is visible; the volatilization and mixing of various body fluids, including sweat, tears, and urine. , repeatedly emphasized that there was insufficient light in the closed tank, the air was stuffy, and the atmosphere was tense. There are several people crammed into a small space, so the movie is full of close-ups and extreme close-ups. Even if it is not a real-life shooting, the difficulty can be imagined. People's activities are greatly restricted, and cameras have to be interspersed throughout. Switching between internal and external scenes relies on a looking glass. The perspective seen from inside the tank is real and direct, just like a first-person perspective game, with a strong sense of reality. It should be noted that the subjective perspective of the machine gunner is the embodiment of the director himself. The film lacks the perspective of the driver and commander. When escaping from behind, the situation outside is simply omitted. It is a dark mess, shaking with violent vibrations.
A field full of sunflowers is swaying and rolling in the gust of wind as if enemy soldiers and horses are hidden underneath, and there is murderous intent in the calm. The story then broadens the imagination of the film's opening scene, where young soldiers are caught on a killing spree, and it is difficult to distinguish whether those around them are cunning enemies or innocent civilians. Although the steel machine looks invulnerable to guns and bullets, "Lebanon" will tell us that tanks are actually very fragile, and even more vulnerable are the people inside. The fallen soldiers, the crippled chicken farmer, and the burning innocent woman, each appearance of these characters is more shocking than the last. The director also cut the camera to a donkey, which had to endure terrible pain before dying, with tears streaming down its clear eyes. The images of the Virgin Mary and the beautiful scenery of the world are too far away from this place of death.
When you are at war, you have no choice but to escape. After witnessing death and then fearing death, people will ultimately want to save their lives. Some of the soldiers in the tanks had weak legs and feet, and some were passive and timid. They were brought into the war and wanted to escape but could not. The life-and-death situation is too cruel, and the people in the tank will also have conflicts over a simple command. The iron wrapping seems to isolate the tank from the outside, but the confined space can also cause fear. Once they were ambushed, they had little room to escape, not to mention that the tank was the center of the march. The cooperation of the ground team made the tank safe. When the tank was left alone and parked in an Arab residential area without support, "Lebanon" created the embarrassment of a modern battlefield, with communication signals interrupted, enemies hiding in the shadows, and the brisk songs of the Arabs. It seemed like a horrific funeral fun for the Israeli soldiers.
The first half of the film mainly shows the twists and turns of the combat journey despite the protection of "iron armor": when terrorists disguised as civilians drove a car into the sight of the tank crew, the ground commander issued an order to fire, but "normal training only involves firing." Gunner Schrink, who had never killed anyone before, was stunned by this sudden situation. A moment of hesitation and intolerance was followed by enemy gunfire. Schrink watched helplessly as his comrade fell down and died of serious injuries. When a pickup truck appeared in front of him again, the furious commander urged Schrink to "kill it without warning." The frightened Schrink hurriedly fired a cannonball. But this time, it was the truck carrying chickens that was hit. The poor old farmer's hands and feet were blown off, and he was left wailing on the ground with his last breath. Schrink's comrades couldn't help but immediately step forward and fire two more shots: At this moment, it was meaningless to distinguish between enemies, prisoners of war, or civilians. During the third mission, a family was hijacked by terrorists. The hostages were pleading, the enemies were shouting wildly, and the superiors were urging them to fire. Schrink 's tortured heart was once again caught in a struggling battle between heaven and man.
Although the tank isolates the four protagonists from the surrounding war, this seemingly independent claustrophobic space is far from indestructible: the clear face is gradually surrounded by black oil, and the hands that hold the power of life and death are trembling so much that they cannot obey their orders. They were not unparalleled heroes who turned the tide and killed many people. They were just forced into a war that they could not face and could not imagine. The audience, like soldiers, was forced to get involved in a war that had nothing to do with them from a safe distance, killing unarmed civilians. And why? There were no answers, just the roar of shells. Maybe that’s what good writing is about, asking questions.
In war movies such as "Fury", the audience only sees how majestic the tanks on the battlefield are, killing everyone, but there are few films that show the real life and mental state of tank soldiers: Although the inner wall of the tank is engraved with these two lines: " "A tank is just a soldering iron, and a soldier's body is as good as steel." However, in this film, life is equally fragile, whether inside or outside the soldering iron: the four people are reduced to frightened birds, trapped in a situation surrounded by enemies, and they are isolated and helpless. Mental breakdown gradually. Whether it is the soldiers sitting inside the iron sheet or the civilians who greet the shells with their bodies, they are not the winners of the war.
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