Israeli drama 'Foxtrot' stuns with powerful portrait of grief

“Foxtrot” - ★ ★ ★ ★

Watching the Israeli film “Foxtrot “ is like watching a dream play out.

Writer-director Samuel Maoz's excellent film is of course more structured than the average dream, with themes and tragic twists that are expertly crafted to test the heart, but there is a precise sensation of out-of-body powerlessness and comic absurdity throughout that can only be described as dreamlike.

The story is ostensibly about Michael (Lior Ashkenazi) and Daphna Feldmann (Sarah Adler) immediately after they learn that their son, Jonathan, a soldier, has died in the line of duty. Daphna faints at the sight of the military messengers at her door and is taken to her room and sedated. Michael peers down the hallway, stunned and unable to do anything — cry, help, speak. The officers tell him to drink water every hour, get him a glass and set a recurring alarm on his phone to remind him. They tell him what will happen in the next few days. It is efficient, emotionless and routine, and all while this is happening around him, the camera barely moves from a close-up of Michael's haunted face.

Family members come by unannounced and weep in Michael's arms. But then his aging mother seems unfazed by the news. Occasional dance breaks (really) begin to make as much sense as anything else as we drift along with Michael in this state of shock.

This whole first section, while beautifully shot and acted, feels a little like a wheel spinning in its repetition. Then the film slaps you awake before it lulls you back to the trance state as it takes you to the remote military outpost where Jonathan (Yonathan Shiray) was stationed and looks back on the past six months of his life there.

These scenes take on a surreal quality as Jonathan and his three comrades waste the days away on this desert stretch, wonder whether the shipping crate they sleep in is sinking on one end, and occasionally face tense moments checking the IDs of those attempting to cross this arbitrary border. There is an intentional artificiality to this setting. It is darkly funny, haunting and transfixing.

If this sounds vague, it's meant to be. It is better to know next to nothing about “Foxtrot” going in, as this is a film that, like a dream, is best experienced and not explained.

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Directed by: Samuel Maoz

Starring: Lior Ashkenazi, Sarah Adler, Yonathan Shiray

Other: A Sony Pictures Classics release. At Chicago's Century Centre and Highland Park's Renaissance Place. Rated R for sexual situations and drug use. In Hebrew with subtitles. 113 minutes