Beaufort

This movie is one that I thought helped me better understand what Israeli military go through. It is hard for me to say how much different this is than what American armies go through, but I would assume that many of the feelings and fear are similar. Basically the only characters in this movie are those in the bunker and we never really see any enemy around them. It is focused solely on what the lives for these soldiers in this bunker are going through. An interesting fact is that the director, Joseph Cedar, was once in the same IDF group as these young men. Once I found this out it helped to validate that what we were seeing with these men and the fears they had were real and honestly what people went through in this situation. Once of the most interesting aspects of the movie was how these men seemed as though they were prisoners within the walls of the Beaufort castle. It didn't seem as though they had any control of situation, even what went on within these walls. It seemed to me that these men never thought that the war was going to end, and even if it did, they wouldn't realize it because we got the illusion that they were trapped inside these walls. They were constantly afraid that the enemy was going to attack and we always saw the men going through the hallways, never without their army gear and never without fear that a shot would be fired and the war would continue. After watching the movie, and finding out that the director himself had gone through in the war himself, I wanted to see if the actors had gone through war as well, and what basis this story had in terms of reality.

I found that many of the actors had not actually been in combat, and many people had problems with that because they would not accurately be able to portray what happens in war. The director, "Cedar commented that the actors had to spend a month at an actual outpost preparing for their roles" and becoming acquainted with how these soldiers had to live. This may seem crazy to us because actors in America are seen as rich people who have everything handed to them and live a glorified life. It seemed strange to me that people in Israel would expect an actor in a movie to have actual been in war, because in America this generally would not happen. One of the biggest things that I found frustrating was the fact that we never really got any idea from the enemy as to what was going on. Obviously, the men in the bunker were going to be scared and afraid that an attack would happen, but we never quite figure out what is going to happen or how everything is going to be carried out. It would have been nice to see both sides to the war, but still focusing mainly on what the Israeli side was going through. In all I thought this was a good movie and enjoyed learning about what soldiers go through in times like these. I think it was a good portrayal of a soldiers life and their fear for war.