Cen­sored Voices

As cin­e­ma has informed us on numer­ous occa­sions, in var­i­ous lan­guages and at a whole range of vol­umes, being a sol­dier can be a men­tal­ly dam­ag­ing expe­ri­ence. One ques­tion to pon­der, though, is whether troops who enact bar­barous atroc­i­ties sanc­tioned by the state feel remorse in the moment of evil, or whether it take be days, months, years or even decades to man­i­fest, to sink its dark roots into the mind.

Cen­sored Voic­es, by direc­tor Mor Loushy, takes as its focus the ​“Six Day War” in 1967 which saw a swift, ad-hoc con­flict take place between Israel and neigh­bour­ing Arab states Egypt, Syr­ia and Jor­dan. Just one week after the blood­shed had sub­sided, a group of ​“kib­butzniks” decid­ed to inter­view some of the local ground troops about what they did dur­ing the fight, and the answers they gave caused the Israeli army to cen­sor the record­ings as a way to save face. These tapes are played, backed with archive footage and Eng­lish lan­guage news reports from the time as a way to present a rough chronol­o­gy of hos­til­i­ties and give the cow­er­ing voic­es some hard context.

The notion of a cov­er-up as way of pre­serv­ing nation­al morale is noth­ing new, but it’s fas­ci­nat­ing to hear the pangs of doubt and regret in the voic­es of these fight­ers who appar­ent­ly feel none of the fire of vic­to­ry in their hearts. The voic­es on the tape are matched with the actu­al sol­diers who are placed in front of the cam­era and filmed lis­ten­ing to their tes­ti­monies. Few have very much to add to the tapes, and direc­tor Loushy instead cap­tures their qui­et (though dig­ni­fied) shame.

The recur­ring theme is of grunts being forced to com­mit hor­rif­ic acts by their high­er-ups, show­ing no quar­ter to their dis­or­gan­ised ene­my. Being swept up in the bloody eupho­ria of war can take a man out­side him­self, and this film cap­tures what it’s like to expe­ri­ence that warped mindset.