Z32
Festival-goers who were impressed with the soul-searching of Waltz With Bashir, and its depiction of Israeli soldiers at war in Lebanon, will find an echoing note in Z32, a genre-breaking, original work from Israeli director Avi Mograbi (Avenge But One of My Two Eyes). Mograbi interviews a veteran of an élite Israeli military unit who undergoes a crisis of conscience as he recounts his involvement in an operation in which two Palestinian policemen were killed in retaliation for the ambush and murder of six Israeli soldiers. But Mograbi's film is not just about an otherwise unspeakable event; it becomes a confessional for the former soldier who faces the camera to speak to his girlfriend about the incident - and begs viewers to get involved in the moral issues raises. Mograbi even appears on screen, expressing his own self-doubt as an artist and political activist. With his face partially concealed by a digitized mask, the young soldier reveals the contradictions between a soldier's adrenaline-driven experience of combat and a civilian's need for forgiveness. His girlfriend does not think it is that simple and the issues she raises he is not ready to address. Z32 is an investigation of the way the military dehumanizes both its own soldiers and "the enemy", and, by extension, Israeli society as a whole.




