Adapted from a novel by Ron Leshem and set in a former PLO outpost in the mountains overlooking Lebanon, Joseph Cedar’s Oscar-nominated drama chronicles an isolated Israeli unit under continuous shelling by invisible Hezbollah guerillas.
Although never wholly impartial, this is still a compelling insight into the pressures on those defending impossible positions, and the attitudes of soldiers to a bastion they are about to evacuate.
Considering, with equal pathos, the same concepts of duty and humanity as Letters From Iwo Jima, the picture makes excellent use of its location, while the ensemble is led with distinction by Oshri Cohen’s dedicated but inexperienced commander.