War is so not kosher

>> Kippur is a harrowing tale of the notorious Arab-Israeli conflict

By MATTHEW HAYS

 That war is hell is hardly a new position for filmmakers. The stuff was glorified a wee bit too much up until the '50s, but in a post-John-Wayne world, filmmakers from Francis Ford Coppola to Oliver Stone to Steven Spielberg have put a negative spin on all those bombs and bullets.

 Thus it's difficult to know quite how a filmmaker might manage to focus on the subject with a new angle. Prominent Israeli director Amos Gitai (the man behind '99's excellent Kadosh), himself a veteran of the Yom Kippur War of '73, brings his own experiences to Kippur, creating a rich, if relentlessly harsh, picture of this bit of history. Gitai chooses to open the film with a sharp contrast. Amid the credits, there is a lengthy scene in which a man (Liron Levo) and a woman soak each other in paint as they make love. It's sexy, a universe away from what is about to transpire.

 The film then cuts to Levo and his friend (Tomer Ruso) as they drive off to meet up with their unit. Levo discusses his belief in the philosophies of Marcuse, expressing the theory that rampant materialism has alienated much of the human race. The two men meet up with traffic jams--then bombs begin exploding and they're in the throes of war.

 And here, Gitai doesn't shy away from any of the details. Making his battle scenes alternately horrific and mundane, the surprising and intriguing aspect of this war movie comes in what it doesn't put in the package. There is no John Williams score here; there are no touching moments between soldiers; and, thank God, there are no lapses into slo-mo. Gitai replays the events much like he must have experienced them, and the results are effectively harrowing.

 While Spielberg and those nitwits behind Pearl Harbor claim to be trying to show the horrific effects of war, their films have all too often dissolved into simplistic patriotic bromides. Gitai, mercifully, stays away from said trap, making what is clearly a poignant and bitter antiwar statement. :

Kippur opens Friday, July 13