Cast: Guy Adler, Oz Zehavi, Michael Aloni
On the back of ‘Waltz with Bashir’ and last year’s extraordinary ‘Lebanon’, it is unusual to find an Israeli film documenting the country’s military character with an Altman-esque sense of playfulness. This is M*A*S*H for Israelis, the main difference being that while Altman’s band of brothers were delinquents and rebels, Kosashvili’s characters are just plain incompetent.
The film follows a rag-tag bunch of ill-fitting military conscripts at a military boot camp. The enlisted men are Ashkenazi Jews, new immigrants from North Africa and Europe, Holocaust survivors, as well as both secular and religious individuals. Set over a decade from the late ‘50s to the outbreak of the 1967 war, the film depicts a series of vignettes that represent the various disparate cultural attitudes that were piled together in the creation of the Israeli state.
There is plenty to commend this original and energetic insight into the Israeli military machine. The light-hearted approach is refreshing, and many of the anecdotes and characters are moving and amusing in equal measure. But Kosashvili lacks Altman’s mastery of tone, and when the film deals with the darker side of its subject matter, there is a sense that the director is punching above his weight.
On the back of ‘Waltz with Bashir’ and last year’s extraordinary ‘Lebanon’, it is unusual to find an Israeli film documenting the country’s military character with an Altman-esque sense of playfulness. This is M*A*S*H for Israelis, the main difference being that while Altman’s band of brothers were delinquents and rebels, Kosashvili’s characters are just plain incompetent.
The film follows a rag-tag bunch of ill-fitting military conscripts at a military boot camp. The enlisted men are Ashkenazi Jews, new immigrants from North Africa and Europe, Holocaust survivors, as well as both secular and religious individuals. Set over a decade from the late ‘50s to the outbreak of the 1967 war, the film depicts a series of vignettes that represent the various disparate cultural attitudes that were piled together in the creation of the Israeli state.
There is plenty to commend this original and energetic insight into the Israeli military machine. The light-hearted approach is refreshing, and many of the anecdotes and characters are moving and amusing in equal measure. But Kosashvili lacks Altman’s mastery of tone, and when the film deals with the darker side of its subject matter, there is a sense that the director is punching above his weight.
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