Review of Beaufort (2007) by Walter M — 27 Jan 2008

[font=Century Gothic]"Beaufort" takes place at a medieval fort in southern Lebanon which was captured by the Israeli army in 1982 in a controversial battle.(Years later, there are debates concerning whether an order to attack was ever given.) 18 years later and the war is winding down but hostilities have not quite ceased. To prove that point, Hezbollah have planted an explosive device on the road out. In response, the Israeli army have sent a bomb squad expert, Ziv(Ohad Knoller), to defuse and study it but he is not quite sure he can. Regardless, the commanding officer, Liraz(Oshri Cohen), strongly disagrees and wants the bomb removed anyway...[/font].

[font=Century Gothic]"Beaufort" is a moving film about the futility of war against an enemy who is never seen, the soldiers never being allowed to patrol beyond the confines of their outpost.(The outpost itself is undermanned and mannequins are employed to fill in the gaps.) The movie perfectly captures the feel of combat which I have heard described as long periods of tedium, broken up by sheer moments of terror. But this is also where the movie stumbles badly by setting up a couple of manipulative and predictable sequences, topped off by a prolonged ending. In the end, there is something deeply tragic about a war started by one generation, only to be finished by the next.(Hopefully, this does not happen with Iraq.) [/font].