Samuel Moaz - Director of 'Lebanon'

In May last year I interviewed the ex-soldier-turned-film-director, Samuel Moaz about his debut award-winning feature film, 'Lebanon'. For some reason I didn't link to it here at the time, but here it is now:

Wounded as a young soldier in the 1982 Lebanon War, writer and director Samuel Maoz dedicated himself to depicting his experiences as a 20 year-old tank gunman in his latest film, Lebanon.

Awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, Lebanon is a very personal film for Maoz. In 2007 he began to write the script, basing it solely on his personal experiences and featuring one of the four central characters, Shmulik, as his younger self. Never having been involved in any kind of violence before, Maoz and the three other young men with whom he operated the tank found themselves thrown together in the midst of the chaos of war and, against their consciences, were forced to kill or risk being killed.


Deeply traumatized by the events he witnessed, Maoz says that it took 25 years for him to be able to even write the screenplay.

“In a way we were brainwashed”, he says. “When we came back, with all our limbs intact and without any serious injuries, I felt like I couldn’t complain, even though inside I felt very bad. Our teachers and parents would say ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, what is there to complain about? You have your life and your health’, so I just said nothing.”

“Many of our parents and teachers had lived through World War 2”, says Maoz. “I remember a teacher at my school who had the tattooed number on her arm from having been in a concentration camp. Because of their experiences, they were very pro us fighting for our country when the war happened.”

When Maoz finally did put pen to paper, his motivation came not from wanting to achieve catharsis, but from wanting to protect other young men from a similar fate.

“I was watching the news of the war in 2006 it made me think to myself that over 25 years nothing has changed. My experience and suffering hadn’t changed anything, it was happening again. Luckily I have daughters, but my friend’s son died in the fighting. When it’s just your own pain you can let it pass, but when it affects your children, it’s something else. So I wrote the script not to complain about myself but to save lives.”

The release of Lebanon is a timely one. Tensions in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine are currently more heightened than they have been for some time; and Kathryn Bigelow’s film about the Iraq war, The Hurt Locker, won the Oscar for Best Film at this year’s Academy Awards - amongst whose previous years’ nominees in the Foreign Film category were Israeli war films Waltz With Bashir and Beaufort. War and the Middle East clearly have currency in contemporary cinema.

On mention that Bigelow was criticised for not being overtly anti-war in her Oscar acceptance speech, Maoz interjects to point out that her critics were more vocal about her not mentioning James Cameron than her omission to denounce the war. He is joking of course, but he is also right. However, one wonders if there is a responsibility on filmmakers when working with this type of subject matter to take a position on war?

“Are you asking me why I didn’t make a political film?” asks Maoz. “To do a political film you have to be politically correct”, he says. “I wasn’t thinking about winning awards, I was just thinking about my little country.”

“You won’t change anything by talking to the heads of countries. How you will change is by speaking to people whose lives are directly affected by war – to the mothers. If you speak to someone’s head it’s easier to ignore, but if you speak to their inside, to their heart, then you can achieve something.”

For Moaz, to change the opinions of those older generations who would advocate sending young boys to war is to save lives, and in that regard Lebanon is as influential a piece of cinema as you’ll see.

The feeling of claustrophobia, sense of chaos and looming threat of death are described perfectly. All the action is seen from the point of view of those inside the tank. Any action that takes place outside is viewed from within through the cross hair of the gun turret, accompanied by the eerie hydraulic whine of its movement. This device gives the feeling of at once being part of the action and being a studied and separate observer of it – heightening the feeling of detachment one supposes is necessary in order to be able to pull the trigger when it counts.

Looking cramped, dark, dirty, smelly and terrifying, one assumes the shoot was a difficult one.

“There was no tank at all”, says Maoz. “That is the magic of cinema, I give you only 20% and the rest is in your head.”



What else, then, isn’t real? Since the character of Shmulik is based on Moaz is the story told during the film by Shmulik (played by Yoav Donat) about a sexual experience with his 11th grade teacher true? Moaz grins, hesitates and then with a mischievous glint says, “Yeah, sure it’s true”. Maybe he just wants us to think that.

There is now some understandable interest in Moaz from Hollywood and the director is keen to work on new projects – “I think I’d like to do a black comedy next”, he says wryly.

Before anything else, though he’d like to go home.

“I’ve been travelling for 7 months all over the world promoting the film. I miss home. I live with my wife, daughters, sisters and nieces – 12 women! I’m not used to having to look after myself.”

But concerned again that he’s not seen to be complaining, he adds, “But this is the dream of every director. I didn’t set out to write the film to cleanse myself, but I earned that along the way. It was the best kind of treatment for me. This is the beginning of a new age and I am hungry and full of passion.”

URL to the original article on Don't Panic's site: Here.