The veteran Israeli filmmaker hits a wall when he deplores the broad concept of war.
Israeli Amos Gitai sees lack of political courage in Gaza
By Siddhant Adlakha
“Why War” is both the title of Amos Gitai’s latest film and a question that has long plagued the director’s mind — a question he has attempted to answer in works like “A Letter to a Friend in Gaza” and “West of the Jordan River.” This seemingly direct confrontation of the question takes a roundabout route, however, resulting in a film about helplessness, frustration and intellectual debate in the face of military conflict. Based in part on written correspondence between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, the film takes on an experimental, metafictional form, though the images can’t help but feel eerie, if not entirely aimless.
Through staged scenes of ancient battles (one of which appears to be the First Jewish-Roman War), Gitai carves a fiery path for his musings, though his methodology quickly proves too broad for his subject. Early in the film’s running time, the film features images from the heart of Israel, from art installations commemorating the events of October 7 to countless posters of Israeli hostages, alongside the slogan most associated with them: “Bring Them Home.” Any subsequent examination of war, therefore, must emerge from this contemporary context, but the approach “Why War” takes is often too vague for a film that demands specificity. (Without shots of the aforementioned installations, it would be a very different work.)
