Movie Review: Foxtrot

Foxtrot **** / *****

Directed by: Samuel Maoz.

Written by: Samuel Maoz.

Starring: Lior Ashkenazi (Michael Feldmann), Sarah Adler (Daphna Feldmann), Yonaton Shiray (Jonathan), Yehuda Almagor (Avigdor - Michael's Brother).

 

Foxtrot opens with a knock on the door – on the other side are two military men there to tell Michael (Lior Ashkenazi) that his son has been killed doing his military service. Michael is a successful architect in Israel – a military veteran himself – and yet once he gets the news, he seems to walk through the rest of the first act of the movie in a daze – paralyzed by indecision and fear, unable to figure out just what the hell to do next. Act 1 ends in a shock, and then in act II, the tone of the movie shifts. We are now with Michael’s son Jonathan (Yonaton Shiray) and his unit, who have been assigned a remote roadblock. Not much happens there, there aren’t many cars coming by, and the men are bored. This section is surreal, and more than a little bit funny, as these bored young men cannot quite figure out what they’re doing, or how things ended up so crooked. It’s funny right up to the point when it isn’t anymore.

 

Foxtrot is the second film by Samuel Maoz – coming 8 years after his debut, Lebanon, which was based on his own experiences inside a tank in that war in 1982. In many ways, Foxtrot is a companion piece to Lebanon – Michael is a veteran of the same war, and also haunted by it. He doesn’t suffer from PTSD in the way we would normally expect him to – but he is clearly not being completely up front with everything that happened, and he hasn’t dealt with it. He’s tried instead to become successful, and in doing so, thinks that will just excuse whatever happened in the past – and that if he just doesn’t talk about it, no one will know. He’s wrong.

 

Foxtrot is a more ambitious and better film than his debut – which others liked more than I did (I thought it was fine, but hardly great). Here, Maoz mixes tone very well – the first act is deep and dark, edging, only into its final minutes, into something slightly more absurd. The second act is surreal – a kind of waking dream that turns into a nightmare, complete with dancing, and absurd comedy. Its turn towards tragedy is the mirror image of the one at the end of act one. Maoz isn’t cheating here – but he’s going for something larger. This messed up Israeli family of men incapable of expressing themselves is something larger.

 

The third act of the film is more melancholy than the first two. You can probably guess where the movie is headed in terms of its plot, but it goes there with sensitivity and compassion. The final act is quieter than the first two, and more perhaps more thoughtful – maybe even optimistic, despite the price everyone has paid by that point. It’s really in this act that having an actor like Ashkenazi helps the most, as he’s able to bring a lighter touch to keep this thing from becoming depressing. This is a movie about several generations in Israel – from Holocaust survivors, to modern day Israel soldiers, all of whom are struggling in their own way. The film takes chances, and zigzags throughout – so even if you sense where the plot is going, it’s still fascinating to see it get there. This is a fascinating, bold, funny, tragic movie – and it’s amazing just how Maoz is able to make all those elements cohere together, so that the whole is even better than the sum of its parts.