TSAHAL (IDF–Israel Defense Forces)*
Toronto Film Fest Premiere, September 12, 1994–An effort at a probing microscopic look at the Israel Defense Force is offered in Tsahal, Claude Lanzmann’s unabashedly epic documentary, sort of a logic follow-up to his landmark 1985 documentary, Shoah (a far superior work).
Grade: B (**** out of *****)
Though not as emotionally gripping and epically awesome as Shoah, Tsahal is still remarkably impressive in its unrelenting ambition to understand the ideological foundations of the Israeli Army as one of the most celebrated in the world.
While the five-hour-docu will naturally be embraced by Jewish audiences, Tsahal deserves a major theatrical release due to its broader concerns.
Among other thongs, it raises relevant issues that go beyond Israel and its army, such as the rules of conduct (and misconduct) during combat, the universal fear of death, even for an “honorable,” militarism as a social value, and the heavy costs for living in a society dominated by wars.
Lanzmann has devoted his entire career to the painstaking documentation of modern Jewish-Israeli history. His cumulative efforts have resulted in a trilogy (Pourquoi Israel in 1973; Shoah, and now Tsahal).
Jointly, the features have contributed not only to the understanding of what’s unique about the Jewish experience, but also changed the conventions of the documentary genre in terms of scope, method and style.
The centrality of the army as a sacred institution in Israel’s political culture derives from the fact that in 46 years of independence (the state of Israel was formally declared in May 1948) the country has engaged in five major wars (thus far).
This very fact makes Tsahal a much more ambitious and encompassing work than just a docu about combat and warfare. Indeed, despite diversity of opinions, the most consistent theme in this film is the crucial link between the Holocaust and the very existence of Israel as a Zionist state with the right to defend itself with a strong army, Tsahal.
Using his famed challenging (read: combative) mode, Lanzmann begins his docu by plunging right into the fascinating question of the nature of feelings during combat, specifically the fear of death and the guilt involved in survival when all your peers (who had fought with you) are dead.
In the first hour, the director scrutinizes the 1973 “Yom Kippur War,” Israel’s only “bad” war, and its meaning for the men who fought its battles as well as for the county at large. This war marked a turning point in Israel’s history, as one military witness notes: “It was like a big fire burning society, a massive execution of a whole generation.”
The chief strategy utilized is similar to that which defined Shoah, namely an almost complete reliance on direct interviews and reconstructed memories by various witnesses, and avoidance of any broader historical-political footage.
As Lanzmann conducts his interviews, his camera tracks insistently Israel’s semi-closed borders, offering a good sense of the country’s tiny size and its alarming proximity to its four bordering neighbors and enemies: Lebanon and Syria in the North; Jordan (and Jerusalem) in the East; and Egypt (and Sini) in the South.
Among the many priceless scenes are interviews with would-be pilots, Israel’s elite force, before and after their first test flights, which would determine their future military careers.
Lanzmann’s cameras are fortuitously present during the weeding out process (“miun” in Hebrew) takes place, evidencing the immediate, spontaneous reaction to success when one is chosen–and failure in cases of rejection.
Tsahal focuses its greatest attention on Israel’s younger generation (“Israel’s jewel in the crown”), teenagers who are obliged to join the armed forces to serve their term (then, three years fir males, two years for females) before going into the reserves.
While deeply committed to and proud of their service, the youngsters are also aware of the price and negative aspects (from their subjective POV). As one of them puts it succinctly, “No fun, no girls, no sex, the entire energy during my adolescence is spent on preparation for the army.”
Covering almost every possible aspect related to the army, Lanzmann’s cameras try to “catch” spontaneously the soldiers during field exercises, like parachuting, probing their natural fears (that some manage to cover better than others) and expectations of fighting in “real wars,” after such a long training and exercises.
Obviously, at times, documentary gets rather solemn and morbid, and even downright targic a d depressing. Note the scene in a cemetery, where Lanzmann shockingly realizes that some of the buried soldiers had lost their lives at the young age of eighteen or nineteen.
In its first part, Tsahal seems like an intentional and unabashedly patriotic tribute to the indefatigable spirit of the Israeli soldier.
But then Lanzmann switches to some dissenting voices of famous writers, such as David Grossman and Amos Oz and civil rights lawyer Avigdor Feldman, who criticize Israel’s militarism and its treatment of Arabs in the occupied territories after the 1967 Six Day War,
The docu’s last hour is particularly strong in juxtaposing the irreconcilable left-wing and right-wing views on the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Tsahal is by no means flawless: Some viewers will find it exceedingly long. The running time is slightly over five hours, or 312 minutes (including credits).
And not all of the information is equally absorbing: The sequences dealing with the Israeli tank–and other military machinery–may be too technically detailed for the lay public.
Out of respect for his witnesses, many of whom are members of the military elite, Lanzmann neither interrupts nor forces any cuts (unlike the strategies used in Shoah), letting them conclude their sometimes tall stories well beyond making the crucial points or fact.
Lack of Female Voices or POV
There’s one glaring omission, which is unacceptable: Lanzmann didn’t interview any women in the military, which is peculiar considering that Israel has taken extra pride in initiating compulsory service for women and women’s representation in almost every branch.
Having gathered most of his info in 1992, the recent development in the Middle East have inevitably contextulaized Tsahal in ways that couldn’t have been anticipated by Lanzmann–nor by Israel’s power elite, or military-industrial complex.
Nonetheless, as in Shoah, Lanzmann’s extensive, persistent, tireless (and sometimes obnoxious) probing hammers away at details that initially appear isolated, but later on assume a more enormous cumulative power.
After five hours of lengthy interviews with officers and rank-and-file, military and civilians, one gets a glimpse, if not a comprehensive grasp of what makes the famed and famous Israeli army tick.
Credits:
Producer: Eyal Sher
Director, Writer: Claude Lanzmann
Production Co: Bavaria Film, Les Films Aleph, France 2 Cinéma
Running time: 312 min
Interviewees:
Major-General Arik Sharon
Chief of Staff Ehud Barak
Major-General Avihu Bin-Nun
Air Force Commander
Writers: Amos Oz and David Grossman
Lawyer Avigdor Feldman
*IDF: in Hebrew, a literal translation is Israel Defense Force (not the plural Forces)