User reviews

Part satirical allegory, part surrealist indictment, Foxtrot finds writer/director Samuel Maoz working with similar themes as he did in Lebanon (2009); the ridiculous nature of war, the desensitisation of youth during wartime, the futility and meaninglessness of giving one's life in the service of one's country. However, whereas Lebanon was set during the 1982 Lebanon War, and shot entirely from inside a Centurion tank, Foxtrot is set in the present day, and expands Moaz's thematic concerns to take in the grief and anguish of those who have lost children to military service. Much like Lebanon, Foxtrot is an intensely political film, and much like Lebanon, Foxtrot has met with controversy and condemnation in Maoz's native Israel. Whereas Lebanon was accused of attempting to dissuade young men from joining the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Foxtrot has been attacked for slandering the moral character of the IDF. A meditative and contemplative piece, heavy on metaphors, for the most part, the film hinges on non-action and passivity - the characters don't so much drive events, as events happen to them. Indeed, this is another of the film's themes - our inability to control fate (or, depending on your outlook, random chance). As with Lebanon, Maoz displays extraordinary technical proficiency and control of the medium, with the film as aesthetically impressive as it is politically divisive. A savage condemnation of both a national psyche and a military mindset that trades on the most binary of them-versus-us dichotomies and consciously strives to blur the line between personal honour and political ideology, Foxtrot is not always an easy watch, and it's rarely what you would call "entertaining", but it's undeniably a brilliantly made and deeply passionate film.

Divided into three distinct sections, the film tells the story of Michael Feldman (a superb Lior Ashkenazi), who receives word that his son Jonathan, a conscript in the IDF, has been killed "in the line of duty". Devastated, he begins to ask questions - how was Jonathan killed, where was he stationed, is there a body - none of which are met with a straight answer. However, several hours later, Michael and his wife Dafna (Sarah Adler) are told Jonathan is still alive; a Jonathan Feldman was killed, but it was a different Jonathan Feldman. The film then jumps several days back to a forlorn desert checkpoint on Israel's northern border (codename Foxtrot) manned by a group of wet-behind-the-ears soldiers, including Jonathan Feldman (Yonatan Shiray). The most action the group see is raising the barrier to let a camel amble through and checking the IDs of the few Palestinians who pass by. Indeed, they are more interested in the fact that the shipping container in which they sleep is slowly sinking into the sand than in anything military-related. However, when a mistake whilst checking the IDs of a group of Palestinians leads to tragedy, Jonathan comes to learn just how ruthlessly political the IDF can be. Without spoiling anything, the third section, which is kind of an extended coda, then returns to Michael and Dafna's apartment, six months after the opening scenes.

In Foxtrot, Maoz constructs an allegory through which he deconstructs Israeli national myths and self-aggrandising narratives. Interrogating what he sees as a culture of denial born from a reluctance to deal with the morality and sustainability of being an occupying force, the film gets a lot of mileage out of the metaphor of the foxtrot - a dance where no matter where you go, if you follow the steps correctly, you end up back at the starting position. Applied to Israel, or indeed, any nation, Maoz is suggesting that without taking great care, countries will repeat the errors of the past, ending up exactly where they once were. The film depicts three generations of Feldmans (Michael's mother (Karin Ugowski), a Holocaust survivor now suffering from dementia, Michael himself, and Jonathan) dancing the foxtrot (literally in Michael and his mother's cases), either unwilling or unable to face up to the country's violent and traumatic past. Speaking to the Globe and Mail, Maoz explains, "Foxtrot deals with the open wound or bleeding soul of Israeli society. We dance the foxtrot; each generation tries to dance it differently but we all end up at the same starting point", whilst he tells the LA Times, "the roadblock is a microcosm of a society - any society - that has its perception distorted by a past trauma."

In a more concrete sense, in two scenes at Foxtrot, the film examines the casual sadism, unspoken racism, and braggadocious machoism that can arise from serving in the armed forces of a country perpetually at war. In the first (arguably the best scene in the film), the soldiers make a Palestinian couple stand in the pouring rain whilst their antiquated computer checks the couple's IDs. Obviously dressed for a formal night (he is in a tuxedo, she in an elegant dress), by the time the soldiers clear them to pass, their clothes are destroyed, as is her hair, and her makeup is ruined, with the soldiers even making her empty the contents of her purse onto the ground. The scene is brilliantly staged, agonisingly realistic, and takes place in real-time, with Maoz concentrating on the couple looking at one another across the roof of the car, conveying agonised helplessness, compromised innocence, understandable belligerency, and, most saliently, abject humiliation. It's a masterclass in dialogue-free storytelling, and deeply political storytelling at that. In the second scene, the soldiers act with violent impunity against a car of young Palestinians, although the act of violence itself arises from a mistake.

Aesthetically, as with Lebanon, Foxtrot is fascinatingly staged. For starters, Maoz shoots each of the three sections differently, but in ways tightly tied to their thematic focus; the first is highly restrictive, trapping us in the confined ideological headspace of the Feldmans, with the intense emotionality constantly threatening to boil over; the vast wide-open vistas of the second part contrast sharply with the confinement of the first, with the entire section threaded through with surrealism and even a hint of magic realism; the third section is darker than the others (in a literal sense), with a stark visual design that emphasises only those elements that are important to the scene. The Feldman apartment itself is extremely angular, and although it's very spacious, cinematographer Giora Bejach shoots it in such a way as to appear oppressively box-like. Indeed, boxes are emphasised throughout the film; the floor pattern of the Feldman living room, the container in which the soldiers at Foxtrot sleep, the dance moves of the foxtrot itself. The impression given is that the characters are fundamentally trapped - in a practical sense by the boxes with which they've surrounded themselves, and in a more metaphorical sense by the nation's psyche.

Foxtrot certainly won't be for everyone. Some will take issue with the pacing (which, it has to be said, is extremely languid), some with the allegorical nature of the story, some with the film's politics. For everyone else, however, this is a brilliantly realised family tragedy, dealing with the randomness of pain and loss in a country refusing to recognise its past. Maoz tells a personal story, but he also exposes the nature of a country whose moral crisis is no less severe than the crisis in which the Feldmans find themselves. Critiquing the practice of sending soldiers to die for absolutely nothing, as well as the xenophobic mindset that has crept into the Israeli zeitgeist, Maoz has been accused of making an "anti-Israel narrative." On the contrary, he is pleading with his country to change its ways, or it will repeat the errors of history; this is the act of a man who loves his country deeply, but who can see its flaws. In one of the most devastatingly heartbreaking lines I've heard in a long time, Dafna muses, "I remember thinking that I was going to be happy." Maoz is suggesting so too did the Israeli people.

Greetings again from the darkness. The most dreaded knock on the door. Every parent or spouse of someone who has served their country during war time fully understands that indescribable feeling of opening the door and seeing uniformed soldiers waiting to deliver the worst possible news. That knock is how Israeli writer/director Samuel Maoz (LEBANON, 2009) chooses to open his film. Knowing her son Daniel is dead sends Daphna (Sarah Adler) into hysterics, and the experienced messengers know to administer something to help her relax and sleep. Her husband Michael (Lior Ashkenazi, FOOTNOTE) stands stunned, mostly unable to respond.

What follows is one of the most stunning first Act performances we've seen on the big screen. That is not hyperbole. Mr. Ashkenazi is remarkable over the first approximately 20 minutes as a parent in shock, experiencing devastating grief. The news is debilitating to his physical and mental being. Additionally, the filmmaking during this segment is quite something to behold. The close-ups add a heavy dose of humanity, while the terrific overhead camera angle presents Michael as trapped, while also adding to the disorientation that is so key. The one-hour alarm set to remind him to "drink some water" would be humorous if not for the fact that its structure prevents the man from totally breaking down.

The second Act takes us away from Daphna's and Michael's contemporary Tel Aviv apartment and plops us into a remote military outpost where 4 young soldiers are charged with guarding a road passage. Thanks to this boring assignment, the young men find ways of adding interest to their days: timing canned goods that roll down the ever-increasing slope of their sinking-in-the-muck domicile container, raising the bar for the periodic camel that lopes by, and giving the rare passers-by a bit of a hard time as their ID's are checked. 'Of course, this is war territory, so when something goes wrong, it goes terribly and horrifically wrong.

Our final Act takes us back to the original apartment as Michael, Daphna and their daughter are working to reconcile their feelings and somehow re-assemble the pieces of their shattered lives ... though the shifts from that heartbreaking first Act are what sets the script apart from so many movies. Cinematographer Giora Bejach continues the exemplary camera work during this curious segment that leaves us feeling somewhat uncertain at first.

This family is stuck in the war that never ends. Like so many in the area, they carry burdens, guilt and grief that, like the war, also never ends. That first Act is transcendent filmmaking and acting, and the three acts work together as a prime example of the melding of visual and emotional storytelling. Most of the film takes place in one of two locales, and it's the subtleties in each shot that tell us what we must know. And yes, the foxtrot dance does play a role, but like most of this film, it's best discovered on your own.

The methaphorical depiction of the futile repetition of war suggested by the 'Foxtrot' title deserved a better examination than this poorly acted, tedious & ultimately unconvincing movie. Even the several Foxtrot dance scenes themselves were stilted & out of place - ditto the videos of murmations of starling flocks clumsily inserted into the cinematography. In theory the plot contained a powerful narrative of the harrowing wartime experiences of the father being repeated by his conscript son but this was lost in the overly tedious & sometimes completely pointless plot - as in the scenes involving a soft-adult magazine also handed down from father to son - which just reduced the movie's important themes to comic book farce. Things improved significantly in the third act of the movie only to be deflated again by the weak final scene (..no spoilers..) It could have been so much better.

I am not sure why, but there's just something about this movie that brings warmth to my heart. I can't say that there's something inherently unique about its message, but the way that it communicated it really resonated with me. There is no evil in this film that causes pain to characters but rather just unfortunate events. And it's not someone's fault too. I think that this is a movie about the unnecessary suffering that we all have to live through. This message is often delivered with unnecessary pretentiousness and I was happy to feel none in this film.

There were a couple of lines that felt unnecessary, but it is because the whole movie is quite subtle and communicates a lot without words so these lines felt out of place.

The cinematography is also great, although it is not something I often draw attention to. Oh, and the acting is absolutely stellar, especially one of the father, I couldn't take my eyes off his performance.

I am upset that nobody I know saw this movie but I sure will recommend it to as many people as possible from now on so it gets credit it deserves.

The theme 'war is absurd' has become a cliché that tests the creativity of many a filmmaker. How many ways can you represent the random chaos of shattered lives and senseless destruction? The emotional rollercoaster Foxtrot (2017) hits the high-watermark in originality for the way it deploys grief, social critique, and absurdism to show a different side of war.

The film's four acts defy the conventions of linear storytelling. In the opening seconds, a mother (Sara Adler) sees three soldiers at the door and before they can speak she collapses to the ground. With military precision, the doctor among them administers sedation and tells the father (Lior Askhkenazi) she will sleep for five hours; that's usual, they say. When a son has fallen in the line of duty they expect the father to cope. They leave; another comes to plan just another funeral; then alone, the father furiously paces like a caged beast, crushed by his own emotions. In five hours they return with totally different news.

That plotline alone could fill a movie, but it is merely the first step of an absurdist dance with chaos that goes forward, across, back, then returns to the beginning. In the second act we meet the very much alive son Jonathan (Yonaton Shiray) who is stationed on an isolated checkpoint where the only intruders are camels that have trained the guards to open the boom-gate to let them pass. Bored out of their minds, the four teenage warriors tell each other stories, punctuated by Jonathan's memorable foxtrot dance with his rifle as partner. The third and final acts complete this case study of random chaos; they include a scene one year later where the mother and father commiserate a tragedy and a dissolving marriage. The final seconds of the film match the opening in the way they erupt with the unexpected.

Undoubtedly, this film is anchored by the first 45 minutes in which Lior Askhkenazi gives a tour-de-force performance of going to hell and back. It is also a forensic satire that is beyond war clichés and that has infuriated the Israeli Military establishment. So much is being said in this film, with so few words spent. Small moments are jarring: like a father being told casually that his fallen son was promoted posthumously, as if he is worth more dead than alive, or the mechanically detailed way the military deals with death and bereavement. The camerawork and colour palette superbly set the mood of each act, and the asymmetry of the narrative reflects an alternative and absurdist universe in which war is normalised.

This is powerful cinema, the kind that can sweep you up with its characters, emotions, and story. Then, at the end of the film when the dance is done, you are left in disbelief at the banality of humanity. Watch for Foxtrotin Best Foreign Film award.

As others have pointed out, this is a 3-act film. Act 1 provides a chilling view of the military precision of the Israeli military's process for informing a family of a tragedy. Act 2 provides a view of Foxtrot outpost, a checkpoint guarding some deserted road. There is the general boredom, combined with occasions of high anxiety, where any car to be checked could have suicide bombers. In Act 3, the family's unsuccessful attempt to see their son's body leads to more drama, with an ending that I consider too neat - hence my low score on the movie.

'Foxtrot' begins with a woman, Dafna (Sarah Adler), opening her front door, seeing who is on the doorstep and immediately fainting. Moments later her husband Michael (Lior Ashkenazi, possibly Israel's busiest actor) is told by three members of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) that his and Dafna's son Jonathan has been killed on military service. The IDF take over everything, arranging the funeral, dispensing sedatives to Dafna and setting alarms on Michael's telephone to remind him to drink every hour. Then the scene shifts and we are at Jonathan's lonely desert outpost, where the soldiers - when not sleeping and eating in a slowly-sinking shipping container - man a grubby checkpoint used most regularly by an unaccompanied camel. A final scene change brings us back to Dafna and Michael on what would have been Jonathan's twentieth birthday.

I found the middle and final segments the most interesting: although not a lot happens at the checkpoint, the segment set there is an interesting study on how boys from comfortable middle-class backgrounds cope when handed guns and forced to live in squalor. The bereaved parents' conversation in the third segment, in which we see how their loss has affected their relationship, is terribly bittersweet. By contrast, the first segment has a curiously episodic feel to it that may be intended to convey how Michael stumbles through the hours immediately after learning of his son's death, but I found rather jarring. On the whole, though, this slow-moving film is well worth watching.

Winner of the Silver Lion at the Venice International Film Festival and Israel's submission to the 2018 Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film, Israeli director Samuel Maoz's ("Lebanon") brilliant and confounding Foxtrot reveals itself less by narrative than by images: A narrow road in an empty stretch of desert, a lonely camel meandering through a checkpoint, a young recruit's gyrating dance in the middle of the road, soldiers in a panic opening fire. Though the images imply condemnation of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the war, and Israel itself, Foxtrot is not an overtly political film but a family drama that has universal meaning to anyone who has suffered the unexpected loss of a loved one. The title suggests that life unfolds like a series of dance steps: Forward, side, and back in a preordained pattern, only to end up in the same place in which it began.

Shown in the format of three connecting stories, in the first segment as Dafna Feldmann (Sarah Adler, "The Cakemaker") opens the front door of her upscale high-rise Tel Aviv apartment, she immediately knows that the look on the faces of officers of the IDF can mean only one thing. "Mr. Feldmann," says the first soldier to Michael (Lior Ashkenazi, "Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer") who is lurking in the background, "I'm sorry there's no easy way to say this. Your son Jonathan (Yonaton Shiray, "A Tale of Love and Darkness") was killed tonight in the line of duty." The officer does not say anything about the circumstances of his death, only that he had "fallen in the line of duty," a military euphemism that puts a brave face on another in an endless stream of deaths to report on.

Speechless, almost catatonic, Michael is told to keep drinking water by the officer who programs his cell phone to ring every hour to remind him. A successful architect, former tank commander, and the son of a survivor of Auschwitz, the tragic news unleashes the hidden rage that Michael has carefully kept from public view, directing it towards the unfeeling military bureaucracy. Fate, Maoz suggests, is not an unyielding emanation from God, but an innate part of a people's legacy passed down through generations. When we learn that his family has roots in the Holocaust, we understand that his paralysis of feeling can be traced to a childhood of quashing his emotions, a situation that creates, "a new generation of victims." Though we can feel Michael's distress, his flashes of cruelty, especially towards his dog, are off-putting and perhaps designed to keep us at an emotional distance.

The second segment takes place in a desolate military checkpoint known as "Foxtrot," a supply road used by Palestinian cars and wandering camels, located somewhere on Israel's northern border. Moving from black comedy to tragedy, the sequence is an almost dreamlike and surreal allegory that provides an absurdist view of the war. The young soldiers, including Michael's son Jonathan, form a four-man guard who have become increasingly bored with the daily routine. They pass the time in their shipping container which serves as a barracks by telling each other stories about their home life, eating unappetizing meals out of cans, and rolling an empty tin of canned meat towards the wall to see how fast their container is sinking into the mud.

In one of the most indelible moments of Foxtrot, Jonathan hugs his rifle and performs an unencumbered joy-filled dance in front of the barracks, a scene reminiscent of Galoup's wild, uninhibited dance that ends Claire Denis' masterful "Beau Travail." Breaking the interminable quiet are cars carrying Palestinians seeking to pass through the checkpoint. Travelers are compelled to sit and wait for long periods of time and, in one instance, a couple dressed for a wedding are humiliated by being forced to stand outside in the pouring rain while the soldiers take their time checking their IDs. When an act of sudden violence against unarmed civilians occurs, an IDF commander covers it up, telling the perpetrators that they will not be punished, that unfortunate things sometimes happen in wars.

In the third sequence, after the passage of several months, the film returns to the Feldmann's apartment as Michael and Dafna, now living apart, meet to remember what would have been Jonathan's twentieth birthday. Still processing their grief, Dafna strikes out at Michael for his weakness that she alleges caused Jonathan's death, but the music of Arvo Pärt's "Spiegel im Spiegel" tells us that, underneath the anger and the grief, their love is graced by the truth of acceptance and reconciliation and that, in the poet Rumi's phrase, "the night ocean is filled with glints of light." Foxtrot has been roundly condemned by Israel's Minister of Culture and Sport, Miri Regev, (who hasn't seen the film) for its "self-flagellation and cooperation with the anti-Israel narrative," calling it "a work of treachery," and asking for the state to end funding for films that can be used as "a weapon of propaganda for our enemies."

In spite of the Minister's comments, Foxtrot won eight Ophir Awards (Israel's Oscar equivalent) including awards for Best Picture, Best Actor (for Ashkenazi), and Best Director. In an interview with The Times of Israel, Maoz responded to the critics by saying that the film was simply meant to open discussion and create dialogue, "If I criticize the place I live," he said, "I do it because I worry." After the recent killing of at least 15 unarmed Palestinians by Israeli soldiers near the barrier separating the Gaza Strip from Israel, an act for which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered neither sympathy nor remorse, perhaps it is time for all of us to worry.

This film was not well received by the Israeli military, because it contains severe criticism to them. A surprising movie, going in unexpected directions many times during its narrative. It was a strong candidate for best foreign film at the Oscars, but the Israeli government lobbied (and succeeded) to keep it out of the competition. A pity, since the directing is absolutely brilliant.

Samuel Maoz's first film, "Lebanon" introduced us to a world-class director and to one of cinema's great debuts. Its follow-up, "Foxtrot" confirms his stature and makes you wish he were more prolific, (they are the only two feature films he's made in eleven years). Both deal with the conflict in the Middle East and what distinguishes both films from, say, American films covering similiar material is Maoz's complete lack of sentimentallty and his meticulous attention to detail.

"Foxtrot" begins with a quiet and devastating exploration of grief as parents are told of a son's death and the details of the funeral rite are explained. What isn't explained are the circumstances surrounding the death. Then, in a twist we aren't expecting, events change and the film takes an almost surreal turn away from what we had been watching like a tragic-comedy with the tragedy very much to the fore.

As in "Lebanon", which took place almost entirely in a tank, Maoz demonstrates a remarkable visual sense in a film full of extraordinary imagery and yet somehow these images don't seem to relate to the film we thought we were watching. This is a war film and a film about conflict unlike any other. Of course, you could argue it isn't about conflict at all but about family, guilt and love and is wholly original. With only two features to his name Maoz has earned his place among the best directors in world cinema today.

Last night, on Amazon Prime, I watched the Israeli movie, "FOXTROT", which is in Hebrew with English subtitles.

The movie is a tragedy within a tragedy multiplied by a tragedy.

It starts with the Feldman family being mistakenly notified by Israeli Army officers that their son, has been killed in the line of duty.

Their son is stationed at a remote Border checkpoint, code named, "FOXTROT", which is monotonous, but dangerous duty, showing the mutual resentment between Arab and Jew.

This results in a horribly tragic incident where the Israeli soldiers mistakenly machinegun a carload of innocent travelers, evidence of which is then concealed on orders of the visiting commanding general.

Because of the previous shock to the Feldmans, their son is ordered to leave his post and immediately return home on the supply truck.

Can you guess what happens next?

These soldiers are all terribly young, with no comprehension of the Holocaust aftermath or the threat of national genocide, as indicated by a bored and confused soldier questioning why are they at that location and what purpose do they serve?

I've been expecting to see faster happenings in the movie, but no, I did not. As one drama, it is good in those segments where you can follow the main character's expressions, but on the other hand it is a bit boring because he is not the only character in it and almost all the rest are unconvincing actors. From time to time a director gives us pieces of black humor and that intention drives us not to be rigorous in giving comments. It is specifically in those scenes with four soldiers in shipping container, that is slowly sinking into the muck, and in which they are located to be while guarding the border. The best two things of the movie are those shots made from above and that little cartoon where we can see the story about what happened in the past and why. From my point of view, it is worth seeing, but it is not the perfect masterpiece as we wanted to see.

The film is unique in that it creates emotional stress by constructing a sense of space. The comical backtracking at the end is a genius. In contrast, some dialogues are somewhat lengthy. The integration between the fatalistic theme and poetic photography failed to be tuned to the best. Therefore, when many of the seemingly idle (not actually) shots are already stunning enough, the film's over-construction in the play seems to be somewhat slightly redundant.

This highly acclaimed drama from Israel is a thoughtful and deep reflection on how we perceive of the scars that grief and guilt can leave on us. The film follows a patriarch and his wife who are told at the beginning of the film by Israeli army officers that their son was killed in the line of duty. These two parents begin to embark on a seemingly hellish grieving process...for the first 30 minutes. I won't give away what happens next, but the film ends up taking a variety of unique twists and turns through three distinct parts similar to that of a triptych-style narrative. It's not quite what you think it is, that's for sure.

The acting in the film is consistently excellent, particularly the performance of the father. He manages to engage the audience in his seething feelings of sadness and an almost-primal sensation of rage, while still feeling uniquely down-to-earth and relatable. This is an almost impossible trick to pull off. Samuel Maoz clearly knows how to write thoughtful analysis of the society and people of Israel, with a clockwork level of precision--and props to him for that. The pacing in the film's three acts, however, could have been improved and can feel somewhat erratic in the movie's second half. Additionally, the finale of the movie is done in a somewhat peculiar manner that falls a bit short of what would most satisfy the viewer in terms of wrapping up the story. Still, I definitely recommend "Foxtrot" to those interested and thought this was quite a well-made film at the end of the day. 7.5/10

Very bad directing1 The movie cannot take you in the story, very unnatural and inventive.