To See if I’m Smiling

To See If I'm Smiling (Lirot Im Ani Mehayechet) is a film of stunning intensity, a shocking set of portraits of female Israeli conscripts. All of those interviewed in this documentary served in the West Bank and the occupied territories, indeed, some volunteered for duty there. Director Tamar Yarom is herself a veteran of that part of the conflict, and brings no small measure of sensitivity with her.

This film belongs to the women themselves, as much because Yarom has recused herself from the action. We hear from her only three times, single questions, small prompts; the rest of the time she is invisible behind the camera. The film, indeed, the title, is held together by Meytal, an army medic. In the course of her duties, some horrific, a photograph is taken. Eventually she goes in search of it - to see if she's smiling.

Among those telling their stories is Dana, an education officer who admits she "spent most of her time washing dishes", Libi, a combat soldier who talks about a violation of the call to prayer that is as comic as it is sacrilegious. Tal Inbar, an operations sergeant, talks about the "power of a finger" in the Territories, a Wild West where she can do whatever she wants with a gesture. Her control over the street isn't as complete as that of Rotem, an observer. Using CCTV and a radio she directed units almost as if she were playing a videogame.

These women were conscripts brought into a conflict that's been running for over half a century. Israel is the only country with a compulsory draft for women, and this film asks questions about victimhood that are hard, if not impossible to answer. This is a powerful film, in part because it is so transparent. The stories it tells are not clouded by artifice, nor the input of the documentarian. This is, for whatever value, the truth, and it is uncomfortable.