Review of Beaufort (2007) by Marcin M — 04 Mar 2008

Any movie that sings the unsung is at least somewhat worthy. A film about soldiers awaiting a decision from a man in an office many miles away from the bullets, bombs and bloodshed, is timely, to say the least.

Donald Rumsfeld would probably watch it every night before bed. Yet, while the efforts here are probably noble ones, and the actors do a fine job in portraying fear, anger, and courage embodied in one unit, the greater purpose of this movie troubles me.

It's not exactly war-machine propaganda, but it's too nationalistic to be deemed innocent. Part of what makes this movie is your preconceptions of the Israeli Defense Forces before going in. I'd heard a lot of pretty horrible stories about the IDF, from blocking ambulances to sniping Palestinian grandmothers.

Therefore, I found it hard to put that aside watching this film. Obviously, the crimes of individuals shouldn't be attributed to all in the army, but they certainly tarnish the image that Joseph Cedar is going for in this movie.

As humans, the soldiers has my sympathy, but on a political basis, I was more than a tad cynical. I fear that all this movie will do is bolster support for militant Zionism. The violence in that region of the Middle East has claimed too many lives, and I think we tend to forget that the Arabs are certainly not the only ones committing atrocities.

This war is not a clean one. It's very, very dirty, but the movie doesn't frame it like that. When the credits rolled, I wondered how many children in Gaza had been shot during the two hours it took to watch the film.