Synopsis
Tel Aviv
August, 2006
I’m 34 years old. This time it's final. The next time they call me I'll refuse to come. I'll go to a psychiatrist and make them release me. I’m getting out of the army.
But then, during a Friday diner with my boyfriend, I receive an emergency call from the army telling me to report immediately in Metula, to fight in The Second Lebanon war. Despite my strong objection to the war, when the phone rings, when the call comes, I fail to refuse. I pack my bag, I kiss my boyfriend, and I head North. My regiment gathers in Metula, my hometown. The town that was established by my grand grandfather, in which my father , my grandfather and my grand grandfather were the mayors. I became a filmmaker.
In the first Lebanon invasion, I was a 10 year old boy in a bomb-shelter. This time, in the second Lebanon war, I’m commanding a tank that can bomb others.
In 2001 I started filming my army reserve service. I wanted to understand the “Pavlovian” response I have to every reserve duty order that came in the mail. I wanted to understand the dread they evoke in me, and the roots of that dread. When I was called to war and found myself astride a tank in the middle of my home town, I understood that it’s the place where I was born and raised that makes it so hard, if not impossible, for me to break ranks and refuse.
I understood that this film begins and ends with a complex family history.
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