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It’s 2000 and a group of Israeli soldiers are preparing to withdraw from their mountain outpost at Beaufort castle in southern Lebanon. Led by young officer Liraz (Oshri Cohen), the men are subjected to rocket bombardments from unseen Hezbollah guerillas and begin to question whether their colleagues’ lives have been sacrificed in vain. Nominated at this year’s Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film, Beaufort is a war movie in which action comes second to mood and atmosphere, with writer/director Joseph Cedar (himself a former paratrooper) shooting the interiors of the base to suggest the confines of a spaceship. The broader political questions aren’t addressed, but Cedar successfully conveys the boredom, fear and claustrophobia experienced by his conscript characters.
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