Kippur

October 6th, 1973. The country is quiet, it is Yom Kippur. When the war breaks out, Weinraub and his friend Russo race out to the Golan Heights to join their unit. Chaos reigns everywhere. They cannot find their unit, so decide to join an Air Force emergency first-aid unit. A few days later, a missile shoots down their helicopter over the Golan Heights.

Throughout the film, the viewer remains locked in this absurd question: are we in the war or is that happening somewhere else, off-screen, or was it happening just before the camera got there? We never know for certain and then we realize that this uncertainty is in fact the most profound truth of war, as cinema has hardly ever shown it, with a force and an intensity that takes your breath away… The principle for filming warfare in Kippur is simple, limpid. Favoring real time spaces … making the camera an extra person walking with the soldiers, running behind the others to get on the helicopter before it takes off. The viewer is inside the war while remaining outside the group, accompanying them. Never does the film encourage in the viewer that fantasy of being one of them.

Charles Tesson, Les Cahiers du cinéma, September 2000

FESTIVALS

• Festival de Cannes 2000 – Official selction, in competition – François Chalais Award

• Telluride Film Festival 2001

• New York Film Festival 2001