‘Foxtrot’ a harrowing, absurd exploration of Israeli military life

Samuel Maoz’s “Foxtrot” opens with a prominent credit: “A German-French-Israeli-Swiss co-production.” Though this is Israel’s Oscar entry, and a nominee for Best Foreign Language film, that international production lineage seems more significant than just the source of financing. “Foxtrot” is a film about Israel, but it is about Israel’s relationship to history as it relates to itself, and other countries, in conflict, and the intergenerational trauma of war as it radiates through families.

Written and directed by Israeli filmmaker Maoz, “Foxtrot” is an exploration of Israeli military life that is at once harrowing and absurd. It even angered Israeli Minister of Culture Miri Regev after it won a grand jury prize at the Venice Film Festival last year, and while its depiction is specific to Israel and Israeli history, the ideas in play could be a general condemnation of war itself.

The film opens with the Feldman parents receiving the news that their son, Jonathan, a soldier, has been killed. Upon greeting a pair of officers at the front door, Mrs. Feldman, Daphna (Sarah Adler) collapses and is sedated, while Mr. Feldman, Michael (Lior Ashkenazi) is rendered nearly catatonic. The only instruction he is able to follow is to drink a glass of water every hour, which the officers have instructed him to do, even setting an alarm on his phone.

As the funeral arrangements are being made, and family members begin to gather and grieve, the officers return — they’ve made a mistake. It was another Jonathan Feldman who was killed, and a case of mistaken identity. So sorry. This is what turns Michael from a zombie into a rage-filled father, demanding to see his son.

“Foxtrot” is broken into three distinct acts, the second of which follows Jonathan’s (Yonaton Shiray) life stationed at a remote outpost. He and his buddies wave camels through the checkpoint and scan IDs in rain or shine. They eat canned food and sleep in a shipping container sinking into the mud (a powerful symbol). They tell family stories, draw dirty pictures and scan and scan IDs. This experience of “war” is so banal it’s horrific.

The acts are stylistically distinct, though linked through the unique camera movements leading us into the whirlpool of absurdity swirled by military chain-of-command, whether at the outpost or in the Feldman home. These bored soldiers don’t face danger, though they are primed for it. Trapped by labyrinthine protocol, the situation is pregnant with the potential to shatter and splinter into a million little pieces with one mistake, one reaction, one act.

“Foxtrot” is arch and ironic, and also devastatingly sad. Through the allegory of this family’s tale, Maoz criticizes the endless, meaningless war that continues on and on in a futile dance, a never-ending box step that always leads us back to the beginning.

MOVIE REVIEW

“Foxtrot”

Grade: B

Starring Lior Ashkenazi, Sarah Adler and Yonaton Shiray. Directed by Samuel Maoz.

Rated R for some sexual content including graphic images, and brief drug use. Check listings for theaters. 1 hour, 51 minutes.

Bottom line: A harrowing and absurd look at Israeli military life