i finally saw beaufort yesterday, a beautifully shot israeli film about the IDF's final days in beaufort castle. the film takes place just before israel completed its withdrawal from southern lebanon in 2000.
the film is called a "war movie", but if that's what it is, it's a pretty unusual example of the genre. there's no real combat scenes. the film depicts a bunch of IDF soldiers bunkered at the top of the mountain and shelled on a daily basis. there are explosions and there are deaths, but the enemy is completely unseen and the protagonists don't shoot back.
the reason they don't is because they've been ordered to leave. before the movie starts, the israeli public had soured on the occupation of lebanon and the IDF had planned a slow orderly withdrawal. they did not want to get entangled in any new offenses into the surrounding villages (where hezbollah was shelling them from). meanwhile, hezbollah wanted to get the credit for the israeli withdrawal. by firing on their positions right up until the withdrawal date, they could make it seem like hezbollah drove the israelis out of southern lebanon. thus, hezbollah had every incentive to continue firing at the soldiers to the bitter end whereas the soldiers could do nothing but crouch and wait for the order to leave.
while the soldiers basically spend the film waiting to get out, many were also reluctant to leave. in 1982, israel had waged a bloody battle to take the mountain fortress. to abandon it after 18 years seemed to render that sacrifice pointless. and yet all they were accomplishing by staying was attracting fire and dying one by one. the israeli government had already decided to withdraw from southern lebanon, the senselessness of soldiers dying to take the mountain in 1982 was trumped by the ongoing senselessness of their dying to stay on the mountain that they had already decided to leave.
"beaufort" is an israeli film and clearly is trying to capture an ambivalent moment in the israeli psyche. but as an american, it's hard not to see the parallels with iraq, once withdrawal finally becomes official u.s. policy. once that happens, it's hard not to see american soldiers in iraq as being in the same situation as the IDF soldiers portrayed in "beaufort." americans have died in iraq. perhaps a withdrawal would be seen as taking away the point of those deaths. but staying in iraq and continuing to sacrifice also seems pointless. in the end, staying for the point of staying--staying just to show that those earlier sacrifices weren't in vain--really isn't a point at all.
