MOVIE REVIEW
Lebanon (2009)
The Film Society of Lincoln Center/
Celluloid Dreams
“Lebanon” — the newly-minted Golden Lion winner at the Venice Film Festival — is a personal account from director Samuel Maoz, who served in the Israeli army during its 1982 invasion of the eponymous nation now famous mostly for Hezbollah and rocket attacks. But a live-action “Waltz with Bashir” it is most certainly not. The film is in many ways so indistinguishable from “Beaufort,” an Oscar nominee for best foreign language film in 2008, that one constantly wonders what the Venice jury headed by Ang Lee saw in Mr. Maoz’s film that made it so special.