KIPPUR (2000)

Country: Israel

Genre(s): War

Director: Amos Gitai

Cast: Liron Levo / Tomer Russo / Uri Klauzner

Plot

A helicopter rescue team spends the Yom Kippur War transporting the dead and wounded, witnessing first-hand the horrors of war.

What I Liked

Apparently director Amos Gitai got his start as a documentary filmmaker.  Watching “Kippur,” that does not surprise me at all.  A dramatized film based on his own experiences in the Yom Kippur war, the film’s greatness lies in the utterly convincing realism Gitai brings to it. Watching it, there is definitely the sense that the characters, places, and events not only did happen but are happening in real time before your eyes.  The clothing, the hair styles, the military paraphernalia, the characters, even the film it is shot on, feel flawlessly authentic to the time, place, and situation.

That the film feels like a matter-of-fact documentary is not to say that it doesn’t have a very clear sense of style and art behind it.  Gitai makes sparing use of the musical soundtrack, heightening the intimacy and documentary-like feel of the film.  Most of the background sound is pure noise: engines, gunfire, bombs, helicopters.  However, when he does use the music, it comes with a subtle yet important emotional effect.  With an eerie, atonal sound, the music brings an otherworldly feel to some of the happenings on screen, particularly toward the end as the helicopter crew fly above the wartorn, lifeless landscape of their homeland.  It’s a foreboding depiction of war’s inhumanity and certainly one of the film’s most memorable moments.  Throughout the film, Gitai brilliantly captures the claustrophobia and dehumanization of the war, as bodies are stacked upon bodies, living and dead in the helicopters, transports, and in the camera.  Even the opening and closing sex scenes, are just a lot of grinding flesh pressed upon more grinding flesh.  It ain’t pretty, but that’s the point.

What I Didn’t Like

 Definitely not the feel good movie of any year, “Kippur” is certainly not meant to be.  Don’t come into to this movie looking to feel inspired or thrilled with adventure and heroism.  In fact there’s very little of traditional action fare here.  Through most of the movie, the main characters are driving around in a car, talking, flying around in a helicopter, or collecting casualties from battles that have already happened.  For some, this film will be either a downer or a snoozer or both, but, as someone who truly went through the things we see on the screen, I’m sure part of Gitai’s goal was not to glorify war or make it seem exciting at all.

Most Memorable Scene

Surely the most emotionally effective scene of the whole thing takes place as the rescue crew find themselves trying to pull a dying soldier out of the mire of a horribly torn up battlefield.  With tanks prowling the background like mammoth demons, the crew becomes immersed in a pit of mud.  In as real and frightening a depiction of Sisyphean hell as you will ever see, they continually falter and drop the injured man back into the quagmire until it is they who need to be rescued both physically and mentally.  Devoid of gore or flash, it is nonetheless one of the most horrific and emotionally torturous war scenes you will ever see.

My Rating: 4 out of 5