LEBANON is an intense tank ride

Lebanon concerns the Israeli and Lebanese conflict in 1982, told from the point-of-view of an army tank. The film keeps the perspective inside the tank, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere, never letting us breath fresh air for ninety minutes of screen-time. This film is similar to The Hurt Locker (2009), in that it doesn’t contain a political message, but instead, offers the viewer with an intense experience of common warfare. We see the vast destruction and horrid carnage the weapons attached to the tank produce, and also see how protected they are compared to the soldiers on-foot. The filmmakers don’t waste any time setting up the scenario and immerses the viewer right into the elliptical focal point of the young men driving the tank. The ill-trained soldiers see the scared civilians and hostile enemies shown in a magnified close-up with a target in the middle of the frame, and they sense the people of Lebanon staring right back at them. Paranoid, hot, sweaty, nauseous—they are shutout from the outside world, yet have the power to cause the greatest destruction to their surrounding environment. This is a job they wish they never had. The first forty-five minutes depicts a brilliant, militant experience. A rush of adrenaline is felt through every striking image. The filmmakers are very clever in establishing the atmosphere. Dark liquids and dripping sweat is a recurrent visual motif inside the killing machine. There’s a murky puddle of water on the floor of the tank, and in the beginning, it seems clean and calm, not a single cigarette butt or a ripple, for that matter. Towards the end, the filmmakers explore the destructive elements of the invasion by showing the damage and utter mess inside the tank. Soup croutons, soda cans, cigarette butts, mechanical leakage, smoke, and a prisoner of war occupy the limited areas. Another attribute I enjoyed about the film was that you never see the exterior of the tank, which confuses the distance between the drivers point-of-view and the targets they’re locking in on. Unless I’ve read about periscope lenses or actually have been inside a tank myself, I would have no idea how far I am from my external targets. However, after about the first hour, I kept waiting for a new development in the narrative. I enjoyed the realistic perspective inside the tank, but now I wanted the scenario to backfire on me—surprise me, which I wasn’t. It’s one of those films that strives for greatness, like the Hurt Locker was, but in this case, I wanted the dangerous elements to both explore and expand the narrative beyond what the first forty-five minutes had to offer. I can’t say it’s a bad film because it’s very well-done, but it’s more of a tease. The movie left me wanting more than the rip-roaring experience the filmmakers brought to the table, but for what it is, it’s a tank worth driving. *** (out of four stars)