Is it possible for a war movie to be both… | Little White Lies

In Praise Of

Is it pos­si­ble for a war movie to be both impar­tial and political?

29 Jan 2016

Words by Luke Channell

A man with a beard, wearing dark clothing and body armour, holding a rifle in a dimly lit area.
A man with a beard, wearing dark clothing and body armour, holding a rifle in a dimly lit area.
Michael Bay’s con­tro­ver­sial 13 Hours remind­ed us of a sim­i­lar­ly grit­ty but less gung-ho Israeli film from 2007.

The release of a new Michael Bay movie is rou­tine­ly met with scep­ti­cism, per­haps right­ly so, giv­en that his out­put typ­i­cal­ly com­bines chum­my jin­go­ism with ejac­u­la­to­ry action sequences. His lat­est, 13 Hours: The Secret Sol­diers of Beng­hazi doesn’t exact­ly buck the trend. Accused in some quar­ters of play­ing fast and loose with the facts in its sim­pli­fied recon­struc­tion of the Libyan con­flict, 13 Hours has been derid­ed by promi­nent Libyan film­mak­er Osama Rezg, who claims that the film offers an unau­then­tic rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Libyan peo­ple while per­pet­u­at­ing neg­a­tive stereo­types of the Arab world.

Mean­while, Libya’s cul­ture and infor­ma­tion min­is­ter, Omar Gawaari, has com­ment­ed that Bay has turned the whole affair into a typ­i­cal action movie all about Amer­i­can hero­ism.” Oth­er Libyan locals have bemoaned the omis­sion of their involve­ment, claim­ing that many Beng­hazi locals also fought and protest­ed against these ter­ror­ist attacks. Along­side this, the film has also been nom­i­nat­ed for Islam­o­phobe of the Year’ – an award run by the UK based Islam­ic Human Rights Com­mis­sion (IHRC).

On this evi­dence alone it’s fair to say that mak­ing war movies is a tricky busi­ness. Is it pos­si­ble to make a film that simul­ta­ne­ous­ly pro­vokes polit­i­cal ques­tion­ing while main­tain­ing some degree of neu­tral­i­ty? Or will there always be dis­sent­ing voic­es lam­bast­ing war movies for polit­i­cal bias­es and patri­o­tism? This har­mo­ny between polit­i­cal astute­ness and nar­ra­tive objec­tiv­i­ty is per­fect­ly cap­tured in the 2007 Israeli film, Beau­fort. Based Ron Lesham’s nov­el, it explores the with­draw­al of the Israel Defen­sive Force (IDF) from south­ern Lebanon, direc­tor Joseph Cedar con­cen­trat­ing on the dai­ly lives of the sol­diers based at the mil­i­tary strong­hold of Beau­fort Castle.

Like 13 Hours, Beau­fort focus­es on a small group of sol­diers defend­ing the cas­tle from the mil­i­tant group/​political par­ty, Hezbol­lah. Cru­cial­ly, though, Beau­fort doesn’t demonise its ene­my – Hezbol­lah remains a face­less pres­ence whose effect is nonethe­less dev­as­tat­ing through a reg­u­lar bom­bard­ment of bombs and artillery. By exclud­ing the ene­mies phys­i­cal pres­ence Beau­fort is imbued with a uni­ver­sal­i­ty, it serves as an indict­ment of all wars and isn’t sim­ply serv­ing one polit­i­cal agen­da or perspective.

Beau­fort pre­dom­i­nant­ly revolves around the emo­tions, anx­i­eties and moral dilem­mas that face com­man­der Liraz Librati and his troops in the days lead­ing up to their with­draw­al from South Lebanon and the end of the 18-year con­flict. Cedar’s obser­vant and nat­u­ral­is­tic cam­era expert­ly cap­tures the indi­vid­u­al­i­ty of the sol­diers and the emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal tolls this com­bat has inflict­ed on them.

It’s refresh­ing to see an Israeli con­tin­gent por­trayed as com­plex human beings who love, hate and fear instead of their preva­lent rep­re­sen­ta­tion as an imper­son­al fear­less, bru­tal force. The slow-paced, med­i­ta­tive tone Cedar infus­es into Beau­fort isn’t pure­ly super­fi­cial – his con­sid­ered approach shines light on the utter monot­o­nous nature and crush­ing point­less­ness of war. This futil­i­ty is com­pound­ed in the film’s con­clu­sion, when Liraz’s troops are ordered to destroy the very thing they’ve admirably pro­tect­ed through­out the film.

Unlike 13 Hours, Beau­fort is devoid of gung-ho sen­ti­ment, vis­cer­al vio­lence, heart-thump­ing action and a sole lead­ing char­ac­ter who we can root for – and it’s a far bet­ter film for it. Mak­ing an urgent case for the fol­ly of war, it is an earnest, non-tri­umphal­ist work whose sober intel­li­gence and cul­tur­al rel­e­vance was marked by the out­break of the sec­ond war in Lebanon just one month after film­ing con­clud­ed. So, if you’re look­ing for a rare exam­ple of an authen­tic, bal­anced and polit­i­cal­ly engaged war movie, then we rec­om­mend you seek out Beaufort.

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