“Man is steel. The tank is only iron.” On July 12, 2006, conflict began between Israel and Lebanon. It began when Hezbollah soldiers fired rockets into Israel and blew up two armored Humvees patrolling the Israeli side of the border. Three soldiers died. Two other soldiers were taken by Hezbollah into Lebanon. Israel responded and for 34 days they carried out air strikes and rolled into Lebanon with tanks and foot soldiers. The writer/director of Lebanon, Samuel Maoz, was himself a gunner in one of those tanks, so this is a sort-of autobiography of his experiences. You can feel that placing this story on paper and on celluloid was a form therapy for Samuel. He places us, as the audience, in the dark, dank, cold, putrid, unwelcoming pit of a monster that he knows all too well. And because the camera never leaves the inside of that tank, save for two small book-ending scenes, he shows us what it felt like to be sequestered in those claustrophobic spaces only understanding the outside world what we see through the gunner’s scope.

A single tank is sent into a small town that has already been bombed by the Israeli Air Force. Inside the tank are four young men: Herzel (Oshri Cohen), the loader; Assi (Itay Tiran), the commander; Yigal (Michael Moshonov), the driver; and Shmuel (Yoav Donat), the gunner. For all of them, this is their first taste of war. The first day of fighting pushes all four of these men past anything they were trained for. For who can be trained to fire on unarmed civilians, to plow their way through streets that just hours before teemed with life, to see the blood and havoc that war creates and not let it change and effect their humanity.

The other film that is constantly being brought up when one speaks of Lebanon is Waltz with Bashir, the foreign picture Oscar contender of 2008. Both of them deal with the same war and the same psychological trauma it inflicted on its soldiers, but in wholly different ways. This film showed me an entirely new angle to war, one I had not seen in any war film. The closest comparison that comes to mind is the German film Das Boot but even in that film the sense of confinement doesn’t feel this suffocating. It is impressive that I felt the same heart-pounding, dizzying feeling I got from the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan from sections of this film and, as I’ve said, the camera never leaves the inside of the tank.

When the gunner is looking out his scope, we get to see some sunshine. We get to see a family torn apart. We get to see a soldier bleed out. We get to see inside a travel agency and have a weird feeling in the pits of our stomachs as the crosshairs of the cannon rests upon a picture of the Twin Towers. Most times with any slight movement the turret moans and creaks in protest, but as with any gimmick there are other times when this is cheated, when empathy is being attempted and the whirrs and clanks would get in the way, so they are left out all together. Apart from this story necessary hitch, the rest of the sound design makes it feel like the world is about to come crushing down around us. The only real gripe I have is that the score is sometimes misaligned and did not add to what I was watching. However, that is a small quibble for a film I honestly and whole heartedly respect.

The first thing that struck me as I was watching this film was how confident the filmmaking felt. For only being the second film that Samuel Maoz has ever directed and first one written, you can feel how much he knew this story and exactly how best to portray it. He was able to take what could have been a gimmick and made it impressive. If I venture to read more into it than may be there, it showed how myopic the “war machine” is. The young men, specifically the gunner, can’t really see most of the destruction that their shells are creating. One of God’s little blessings. Just as the people who sit in plush chairs and push pens across paper to declare war cannot see the destruction they cause. Like I said, that may not be what Samuel was going for, but it feels apropos.

Jennifer’s Body was pretty heavily slated on its release, and I can see why. It seems undecided about what genre it wants to be. It has elements of horror, teenage angst, romance, and revenge, but it switches from one to the next without really covering any of them properly. A lot of the plot goes unexplained and important parts, such as Jennifer’s transformation from high school evil to actual evil do not seem to have been thought through properly. However, considering the current film obsessions with most things demonic, not to mention Megan Fox,  i’m still surprised it wasn’t received better.

The film is based in a town called ‘Devil’s Kettle’ and revolves around the friendship between two teenage girls, Jennifer (Megan Fox) and Needy ( Amanda Seyfried). As her name suggests, Needy dotes on Jennifer and clings to every offering of friendship she doles out. The two are polar opposites, with Jennifer being the school’s most desired female and Needy being her uncool sidekick. The friendship takes a severe beating when after a virgin sacrifice gone wrong, Jennifer transforms into an evil demon with an appetite for human flesh.

The main problem with the movie is that too many things go unexplained. Jennifer turns into a demon but it is never really explained what type of demon she is. It’s clear that she is evil, but it’s not clear what happened to make her evil. All we are told is that an occult sacrifice has gone wrong. Flashbacks take us to a gruesome knife attack on Jennifer, which apparently kills her. Then the transformation happens. We do not see the transformation take place and no proper explanation is given, so the viewer is just left confused.

The soundtrack is the best thing about the movie. It is very retro cool and actually has the effect of keeping you engaged with the film. All the songs are well timed, and match the action that they are being played though. Without them, I probably wouldn’t have been able to watch the film to the end.

Amanda Seyfried is good at playing the long suffering friend ‘Needy’, but her transition from uncool friend to mentally unstable is not that convincing. Megan Fox is pouty as usual playing Jennifer and it’s easy to understand why every guy in the school wants to date her. It’s less easy to understand the random lesbian scene between Jennifer and Needy, which seems completely unnecessary. Needy does not appear to be attracted to women and actually has a serious boyfriend who she is obviously in love with. The lesbian kiss seems to be nothing more than a cheap stunt by the filmmakers to get more men to see the movie.

To conclude, Jennifer’s Body is poorly planned and disappointing. It is quite a cool and hip concept but not enough attention was paid to the dialogue or plot. As a result, it leaves the viewer feeling unsatisfied and unconvinced. I’d pay good money for the soundtrack, but not for the movie.

Starring: Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Brody

Dir: Karyn Kusama