Foxtrot film will leave you thinking well after it ends

FOXTROT defies classification but this unusual film, which has been a lightning rod for controversy, will leave you thinking long after its final act.

THERE is no point in trying to definitively classify Foxtrot, an unconventional and unworldly mood piece from Israel.

It is an anti-war movie, but not in the usual form we are accustomed to. It is a pro-people movie, the type of which we could use more.

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The film covers war in an unconventional way.

It is also a provocative commentary on how the state values the lives of those who serve it.

Particularly when that service is over. Or is conducted for a cause that does not warrant it.

This last aspect is crucial. Foxtrot has been a lightning rod of controversy at home in Israel for what some perceive is a moral critique of the nation taken too far.

Ardent believers in what the movie represents are convinced its unpopular stance cost Foxtrot a sure-fire Best Foreign Language Film nomination at the last Oscars.

Foxtrot is a mood piece.

The Foxtrot narrative is split across three disparate sections.

An audacious first act charts the clinical manner in which the Israeli military inform a family one of their own is dead, as a married couple come to terms with news their son is gone.

In the second act, we are taken to a border security post in the desert.

That same son is still alive, and going about his duties by going through the motions that keep boredom at bay.

Then there is the final act, which tunnels in and out of all that came before, and takes you somewhere you will think about for some time to come.

FOXTROT (MA15+)

Rating: Four and a half stars (4.5 out of 5)

Director: Samuel Maoz (Lebanon)

Starring: Lior Ashkenazi, Sarah Adler, Yonatan Shiray, Gefen Barkai, Dekel Adin.

Step by step through a daring, delicate dance