The Israeli writer Amos Oz, deceased at the end of 2018, was praised as one of his country’s and the world’s most important contemporary writers. His relationship with cinema is illustrated by quite a significant number of references on IMDB, where he appears as the author of his books brought to screen, but especially as himself in over 20 documentary films. Amos Oz was a talented and charming interlocutor, who did not hesitate to express eloquently his sharp political opinions and life choices. ‘Censored Voices‘ by documentarist Mor Loushy, made in 2015, is a special moment in this film career because Amos Oz plays here the role of a witness of the Six Days War, one of the crucial moments in the history of Israel and of its relations with its neighbors in the complex ambience of Middle East.
The story of the film began in 1967. Israel was victorious in a war in which the state’s existence had been threatened by Arab armies. In the days, months, a few years after the war, Israel lived in the euphoria of this victory. What had just happened was another miracle in the lines of those who assured the survival of the Jewish people and the rebirth of the Jewish state. Israel had been forced to fight a war of survival, a just war, and had won it. Everything seemed possible, including that this war was the last one Israel had to fight, the decisive one, as the parents of that time promised to their children. Amos Oz, a freshly demobilized soldier, along with a friend, both kibbutz residents, traveled from kibbutz to kibbutz with a tape recorder to record the testimonies of the soldiers who had just returned from the front. The testimonies that were gathered, or at least those selected for inclusion in this film, were completely different than the ones who described heroic deeds and the euphoria of victory. They are the testimonies of young soldiers traumatized by war, who had lived the fearful days of waiting and the shock of the encounter with the violence of war, which had been confronted with the deaths of their comrades and with the need to kill the enemies in war, who had been exposed to acts unfit to the moral prestige of the Israeli army. They had also been direct witnesses to the beginning of the occupation of the territories – the Sinai peninsula (in the meantime returned to Egypt), the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. Even the liberation of Jerusalem does not appear so glorious in their testimonies as in the official accounts, not to mention the contact with the civilian population, some of which will add to the ranks of the refugees. Fragments of these recordings, made between the 10th and the 20th day after the war, released from the censorship restrictions 48 years after the events, are the documentary basis of the film.
Director Mor Loushy is filming those who spoke nearly half a century ago (including Amos Oz) while they listen for the first time to their voice recordings. Almost a lifetime passed over each of them. They do not talk much, they listen quietly, their eyes say more than words when they are confronted with their own young voices, with their accounts immediately after the events. What is clear is that none of them is surprised, none of them seems to have forgotten. The experience of the war has remained with them for all their lives. The rest of the film, on the contrary, features filmed images – some of them are heroic images describing the post-war euphoria, some others are snapshots of filmed journals and archives illustrating and completing the story. The weak part of the film seemed to me to be the placement of the testimonies in the context. For the Israeli spectator familiar with the events, familiar with the historical consequences of the Six-Day War, things are clearer. This is not the case with the less informed spectators. It’s not the definitive film about the Six-Day War. Explanations of the historical background are too succinct. The internal perspective is also lacking. In the movie hear the testimonies of 10-15 people and I have no reason to contest the authenticity of their accounts. Every year, however, around the anniversary of the war we see and hear in Israel dozens and hundreds of other testimonies, and many of these are radically different accounts. There is a huge amount of written material and there have been and there will be many debates in the Israeli society about this war, including about the aspects described in the film. Those who have their testimonies recorded in this film, as Amos Oz says at the end, have told their truth. But this is one facet of a more complicated truth, of a much more complex situation. ‘Censored Voices‘ is an exciting and necessary film, part of a debate that has not begun with it, and will not end with it.