Promised Lands

Produced and directed by Susan Sontag, Promised Lands is a 1974 documentary centered around the Yom Kippur War between Israel and Egypt, Syria, and Jordan that unsettled the Middle East in October 1973. The film features Israeli author Yoram Kaniuk and physicist Yuval Ne'eman as intellectual duelists with differing perspectives on the war, its impact, and the destiny of Israel.

Promised Lands isn't your typicaI war documentary. Instead of a chronological presentation of events, the film is more of an existential investigation of the conflict's catharsis and the broader implications of Zionism. Filmed in Israel during the closing days of the Yom Kippur War, this seminal documentary portrays both the immediacy of war and its aftermath. It captures the harsh realities of warfare, the terrifying uncertainty, the bleak landscapes, and the broken remains trudging through the dust of battlefields. Weaved into the war documentations, Sontag raises profound questions about survivor guilt, retribution, national identity, and territoriality.

Yoram Kaniuk and Yuval Ne'eman form the film's conversant hearts. Kaniuk, an acclaimed author and combat veteran, and Ne'eman, a distinguished scientist and leading political figure, become Sontag's ideologic counterparts within the film. They engage in deep, intellectually stimulating debates about the future of Israel, Judaism's place in this shifting landscape, and the moral complexity of the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict.

Kaniuk advocates for peace and reconciliation, expressing his guilt about the war’s atrocities and the cycle of violence that seems unending. He displays an introspective, self-analytic individual who carries the burden of the conflict, wrestles with its moral ambiguities, and yearns for a more peaceful resolution. His voice represents a portion of Israeli society that feels trapped within the reductive narrative of unending conflict and wishes to push towards a more hopeful future.

Conversely, Ne'eman, the physicist, resembles a pragmatic voice embroiled in the harsh realities of geopolitics. His views, conditioned by the belief in the fight's inevitability, hypothesize an unbreakable cycle of wars for Israel's survival. For him, Israel's existence and security are intrinsically linked to this cycle, inviting an insightful, albeit bleak, analysis of the Israeli political landscape at the time. This dialogue with Kaniuk illuminates the introspective, ethical conflicts, and socio-political issues engulfing the Israeli people.

The film is a sublime combination of stark war footage and philosophical debates, making it simultaneously touching and intellectually challenging. The cinematography enhances the bleak commentary and ground-level documentation of war's realities. Cloaked under a monochrome pallet, the film echoes grim landscapes that juxtapose the complex, intellectual dialogues presented.

Promised Lands is a unique character within the genre of war documentaries. It veers away from the absolutist, propagandistic narratives many such films tend to depict and instead paints a thoughtful, self-reflective picture of conflict. Susan Sontag manages to penetrate beyond the immediate and visualize the broader human issues that often become blurred within the fog of war.

However, it's worth noting that Promised Lands is not meant to serve as a comprehensive historical account of the Yom Kippur War or a detailed political study about Israel. Instead, Sontag's aims are far more philosophically ambitious, focusing on the inward and outward struggles that wars incite within societies and individuals. This approach makes the film a thought-provoking exploration rather than a didactic historical lesson.

In summary, Promised Lands is a brave quest for understanding the Israeli psyche in times of war. It demonstrates the need for films that are capable of delving into complexities around national identity, political destiny, and moral questioning that arise within war-torn landscapes. Susan Sontag's discursive piece remains an exceptional feat of filmmaking, illuminating the intricacies of human struggles under coded international conflicts. The film remains a poignant exploration of war, its aftermath, and the high emotional and intellectual price people and societies pay in its wake.