A Silver Bear winner for Best Director at Berlin, Beaufort is a war film that does not conform to the rules set by its genre. It is not visceral, has no in-your-face violence and gore, has no leading heroic character whom we can root for, and is certainly lacking in action in its purest sense. Yet it impresses because it manages to be compelling in its own unique way.Screened in Singapore for the first time at the 18th Israel Film Festival, Beaufort tells the story of a group of Israeli soldiers on enemy territory, defending a Lebanese mountain fort that they have conquered, which has become sort of like a base to them for the past few months. As they wait patiently for orders from their government to withdraw, they have to protect themselves against exploding shells, and the occasional missile that threatens to wreck their base.For most parts, Beaufort is a slow-moving and meditative drama that focuses on the brotherhood and camaraderie of the soldiers marooned on an enemy site that is steeped in a long history of bloodshed. Director Joseph Cedar takes his time to develop the characters, of which there are quite a few. Some of them die, and there is enough reason to feel aggrieved about their unfortunate fates.Cedar underlines his strength as a skillful director by milking every ounce of tension in many of the film's highly suspenseful scenes. Two sequences immediately come to mind. The first is a sequence that Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, 2009) would have been proud of. It shows a soldier who is trained in bomb disposal trying to locate an unexploded device. He holds a metal rod, prodding the ground as he takes one step after another. The unease and unpredictability in this sequence is taken to the extreme, with no avenue of assurance offered at all to the viewer.The second sequence comes much later. A soldier makes a last trip to his bunker to see if anything important is left behind before his comrades blow the whole place up with hundreds of mines already wired together. The overwhelming sense of dread caused by the fear that the soldier may be blown to pieces anytime, accidentally or otherwise, may be too much to bear for some viewers.The sense of location captured in Beaufort is quite excellent. Wide shots of the surrounding wilderness highlight the isolation as faced by the soldiers. This is balanced by claustrophobic shots of man-made maze-like tunnels in the fort that threaten to disturb the spatial orientation of any soldier trekking through it. Even though we see the film from a restrictive perspective, that of the Israeli soldiers, Cedar still makes sure that we are well aware of "larger presences" i.e. the enemy and the Israeli government that are controlling the fates of these soldiers.While clearly an anti-war film detailing the emotional and psychological impact that war has on soldiers, Beaufort also succeeds in portraying these brave fighters as a cohesive unit, bonded by a common goal (in this case, them withdrawing from an enemy zone). The sad thing, and this is prevalent in the world we live in, is that these soldiers are ultimately used as faceless pawns in an elaborate game of hard core politics that intelligent and mature grownups play. A game that certainly has no consideration for human empathy.SCORE: 8.5/10 (www.filmnomenon.blogspot.com) All rights reserved!

Beaufort is an extraordinary portrayal of soldiers at war. This claustrophobic film charts the final days of the Israeli Defence Force's 18-year occupation of the Beaufort, a strategic hilltop fortress in southern Lebanon. Nearly all of the action takes place within the confines of this fortress (television is one of few windows onto the outside world). The soldiers in the Beaufort never once see the Hezbollah militants who are trying to kill them, but they face regular bombardments from enemy artillery. Director Joseph Cedar sets a slow and meditative pace and, though the film looks and feels very realistic from a military point of view, with unsettling explosions and startling sound effects, the emphasis is firmly on the human characters and relationships in this increasingly precarious outpost.At the beginning of the film, the arrival of the bomb disposal expert, Ziv, allows us to enter the world of the soldiers who inhabit the Beaufort. Their boredom and indifference is palpable, from the tired announcements of 'incoming, incoming' as mortar shells rain down, to the wry humour of the soldiers on night watch. There is a sense of disillusionment with the armed forces; of the futility of guarding an outpost won many years ago and now serving little strategic purpose. Ziv, the new arrival, confesses to Liraz, the squad leader, that he sought an assignment at the Beaufort in order to follow in the footsteps of his uncle, who fought during the capture of the fortress some 18 years previously. Through Ziv's fate and Liraz's meeting with Ziv's uncle we see how generations have fought one after the other and sacrificed themselves for hollow glories. The 12th-century Crusader fort that sits adjacent to the soldiers' compound is a telling reminder of the futile perpetuity of the Middle Eastern conflict.In the early stages of the film we see how close the soldiers are to one another. When one soldier announces that he is leaving, he receives hugs and congratulations from his fellows. However, when the first enemy missile hits the fortress it becomes clear that the enemy's strength is increasing and the film becomes much darker in tone. The soldiers grieve openly for their fallen comrades and those that survive are shaken and sometimes openly afraid. At the same time, they show quiet, grudging bravery in volunteering for the most dangerous jobs. The military response to the mounting casualties is a telling reflection of modern warfare. With enemy propaganda in mind, the IDF decides to minimise casualties by withdrawing from the Beaufort, but keeps the soldiers on tenterhooks by withholding information and delaying their departure.The ordinary soldiers occupying the fortress look forward to their escape and often talk of re-visiting the site one day as tourists. But Liraz, the squad leader, is a man apart. An intriguing and enigmatic character, he is, in the words of one of his men, 'a man who can't believe they gave him the job.' He is oddly attached to the Beaufort in a way quite unlike his men and he struggles to imagine a life after it – indeed there are few hints of any life for him outside the fortress. He shows remarkable bravery and compassion for his men in the last days of the occupation, but he has his limits and is thus something of an outsider and a disappointment in their eyes. In one of the strongest scenes, Liraz orders Shpitzer, a budding musician, to play a song for the other soldiers; this provides catharsis for them as they grieve a fallen comrade, but Liraz assumes an oddly distant look. Oshri Cohen deserves great credit for his performance as Liraz: it is the foremost amongst many fine performances in this film.A special mention must also go to Ishai Adar's soundtrack, one of the most effective that I have heard in a long time. The music subtly adds emotional weight to the film and creates tension by building up slowly and dropping away at the right moments.

I think that rating films out of 10 is a little futile, as what may stir one person may leave another cold. With that disclaimer set then let me say this about Beaufort: Yes this is a war film, in the sense that the characters are soldiers. It is however, in my opinion far more of a character study than most films in the genre. Full Metal Jacket has been mentioned as a comparable work, and I can understand the comparisons. The internal turmoil of the characters is portrayed with similar verve, and the swings at provoking the big questions have similar merit. Where Kubrick's film veers into the slightly surreal to deliver it's message, Beaufort stairs straight ahead into the stark reality of it's particular war time situation, and this is perhaps the fork in the road where the two films part company. This very tangible starkness is what enables the film to deliver such a telling experience, life and death laid bare for all to see and attempt to comprehend. It is one of the quintessential artistic topics, and Beaufort approaches it admirably. The viewing experience may not be as exhilarating as Saving Private Ryan or Platoon, and it certainly lacks the surrealistic glee of Full Metal Jacket, but Beaufort had me contemplating it's content long after I watched it. It had me writing this review, something that I have not done for any of the films I mention in reference to Beaufort, despite their qualities. In conclusion I would thoroughly recommend Beaufort to anyone that enjoys cerebral films, and if you particularly enjoy war films then I would also recommend Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima" as another excellent war film that is similarly thought provoking.

Seeing 'Beaufort' during this pre-Oscar period makes me wonder how it is being perceived by the non-Israeli viewer. The reason is that this is one of these movies with a strong political message, full of nuances and conflicts that I am afraid will be lost to the foreign viewer. And yet, it is a better international film that Israeli film. I will try to explain.There is a lot of cinema aesthetics to be enjoyed in 'Beaufort'. The setting is a direct quote from Kubrick's Space Odyssey, the fortified bunker in the Lebanon of the year 2000 seems to be a spaceship in an hostile and incomprehensible universe, while the Israeli soldiers spending their last weeks before Israel's retreat dressed in the heavy and techno-sophisticated equipment with their weapons upon them all the time seem to be astronauts fighting some invisible monsters who hit when you expect less. The abstractionism of the conflict, the faceless enemy, the waiting, fear, survival instinct are all human themes that find the path to the hearts of any viewer beyond politics.It's a very different movie for an Israeli viewer and especially for somebody who went through the experience of the army, who understands the language and the tension. The characters on screen look familiar to the Israeli viewers, they may be themselves or their children, or their neighbors. The film does not make any clear political statement, and this is a statement by itself.Director Joseph Cedar succeeds to control at the level of detail the image and the sound. Sound work is especially amazing, after a few minutes the viewer will learn as the soldiers on mount Beaufort to discriminate between 'outputs' (friendly artillery fire) and 'falls' (hostile fire).And yet, it is from the Israeli perspective that I found more flaws. It is not the lack of political message that disturbed me, actually I found better as in real life that the director avoided to drive to conclusions and let everybody seeing the film to draw its own. There are too many characters in this film who are part of a schema, and not even commander Liraz well acted by Oshri Cohen reaches the psychological deepness of the characters of other lesser known and perhaps not so good Israeli war films. When one of the characters starts to open himself to his comrades and the viewer his end is coming soon, and this looks painfully simplistic. The overall balance is also broken by the final scenes when the soldiers are back home after a war in which victory means just personal survival - these may be emotional for the Israeli audiences but they are artistically unfinished.I would have loved the film to have a different ending, in the frame where the metal plaque with the names of the soldiers fallen in the fights at the conquest of the mountain at the beginning of the war melts in the fire. One of the characters comments that the plaque could not be taken out in the turmoil of the retreat, like the fallen heroes wanted to stay where they died. Those were the first soldiers fallen in the war in 1982 in a fight famous in the military Israeli mythology. Now their names melted down in the last flames of the same war, heroes and victims at the same time of a war as absurd as any other war.