i saw lebanon tonight. it's been described as das boot in an israeli tank, and that's basically what it is. it's the first day of the 1982 israeli invasion of lebanon. the viewer sits with the four crew members of a single tank as they try to make sense of what is happening around them as things go wrong.the film has some pretty striking, if graphic, scenes. it doesn't shy away from depicting the horrors of war, or war crimes. a lot of times the camera (which is really the point of view of the tank's gunner as he surveys the scene around the tank from his scope) focuses in on the faces, dead or alive, of the people suffering from the violence. while the characters in the tank never feel fully fleshed out, it adds up to a pretty strong anti-war film, as any film that shows the brutality of war inevitably ends up being.
