Review of Beaufort (2007) by Eric R — 28 Feb 2012

Beaufort refers to a military fortress held by Israeli troops during the occupation of Lebanon. this film chronicles the tail end of the occupation for a group of soldiers positioned there. We examine the day-to-day of these men as they slowly come to realization that withdrawing from Beaufort is a foregone conclusion.

The commanding officer, Liraz was the character which I found to be most interesting in the film. He is a man that is raw and inexperienced, yet cares greatly about his fellow soldiers. Every time they fortress is attacked, the viewer gets to experience the torment which Liraz goes through, knowing he is just following orders, but hates to see his men suffer.

The film doesnt have much action and explores a few of these soldiers, but Liraz, along with Ida, a soldier who sorely wants to go home, are the two which I was most interested in. The film doesn't make any sweeping statements about the occupation, rather it just shows the lives of these soldiers and how they are essentially puppets just waiting for orders of what to do.

While it's a solid film the biggest problem I had is that it just doesn't bring anything new that I haven't seen in other films dealing with wartime. It's cinematography has its moments but overall its rather mediocre, although there is some use of sound early on in the film which is like some sort o f faint whisper, that is perfect and really escalates the tension in the early goings of the film.

By no means a bad film and it has a few things that stand out, but its nothing you probably haven't seen before.