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Samuel Maoz is used to hard questions. He has asked himself many.
DONALD CLARKE talks to the director about
Lebanon , his award-winning film. Shot mainly inside an Israeli
tank, it takes a long hard look at Israel’s actions in the area in 1982

SAMUEL
MAOZ is a serious man. Born in 1962, the Israeli director rarely allows
a smile to cross his creased, roughly hewn face. But he does have a
sense of humour. When he set out to promote
Lebanon , his hugely impressive first feature, Maoz studiously
wrote down eight questions he felt he might be asked.

“At the
first press conference, I was asked the first question on the list,” he
almost laughs. “Then I was asked the other seven. I have not done an
interview since where I was not asked most of those questions.”

The
film follows the crew of an Israeli tank as, during the 1982 Lebanon
conflict, they make their way into enemy territory. It is, indeed, the
sort of picture that scares up certain inevitable questions.

“Why
is it all inside a tank?” he says. “Why is it a film about the suffering
of soldiers and not about the suffering of victims themselves? What
about your own personal trauma? And so on.”

Following a screening
of
Lebanon at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, Maoz
is, indeed, asked all these per... >>>