Lebanon | Film Review

by Caisa Ederyd

I’m not a particular fan of war films.

Few of them have made an impression on me other than just the typical men exchanging memories in a dirty war zone.

Or, if they are aimed at women, they normally concern everything that is not war-related combined into some cheesy love story.

The Hurt Locker took me by surprise, and fortunately, that is not the only film lately with male-related issues that can still appeal to a girl like me.

Lebanon is a war film that surprisingly concerns other issues than those that are normally war-related.

Set in the early stages of the Lebanon war in 1982, four boys in their 20s are on a mission in a tank that appears to be more complicated than what was first expected.

Without much experience of war, the boys struggle to keep themselves human when a basic thing such as trust fails them.

It’s an emotional as well as a personal illustration of the invasion in Lebanon, where blood sweat and tears no longer sound like the typical cliché.

We get to know little about the boys’ backgrounds and personalities as a whole, but well-made footage and intense scenes take the audience on a trip where war is portrayed as war should be portrayed; as inhuman and dangerous events that no person would ever want to experience.

Loneliness meets friendship in this well made film, fit for everyone.

A story where the struggle is with the enemy, themselves as well as with each other.

Lebanon, 93mins Released nationwide April 9