IT’S MAGIC TIME : Calendar goes to the movies--around the world : ISRAELI ARMY MAKES FILM, NOT WAR

NEW YORK — As the last of the long, battered convoy of Israeli tanks and jeeps retreated from the Lebanese battlefront, international TV crews scrambled close, shooting this emotionally charged historic event.

But they were unaware that some of the Israeli soldiers grinning into their cameras were actors, part of a strange interplay of reality and fiction called “Ricochets.”

“Ricochets” amounts to a series of battlefield vignettes wrapped into the first anti-war feature film made by an army--and it’s become a commercial success by the most unusual accident.

Produced by the Israel Defense Forces as an educational training film for officers, it was shot during 24 days toward the end of the three-year Lebanon war. The film was intended to encourage discussion about the moral dilemmas facing soldiers under pressure. But it was so gripping and authentic that Israeli soldiers pressured their chief of staff to release it to the public.

Unexpectedly, “Ricochets” has become an Israeli box-office sensation and is attracting international attention, including a “60 Minutes” report scheduled to air tonight.

At the Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals, it won the acclaim of packed audiences, stunning Israeli army brass.

“Ricochets” grew out of director Eli Cohen’s frustrations making documentaries in Lebanon for the Israeli army film unit. “My cameras couldn’t get to the ambushes on time,” he said during a visit here. “I begged and pushed and disobeyed orders, but I couldn’t capture critical historical moments as they were happening. That’s when I realized fiction--a feature film--was the only way to portray this kind of reality.”

The army film unit agreed--and Cohen made it during his mandatory annual reserve duty.

It captures the brutality of war as a small unit of young soldiers--brave and humane, but also trigger-happy, angry, confused--struggle with their consciences:

One soldier befriends a Lebanese child, who is accidentally shot by the soldier’s own platoon. . . . A wordless romance between a soldier and a local Arab woman develops--and abruptly ends when he discovers that she’s part of a Shiite terrorist ring. . . . One terrorist is hiding in a house filled with civilians--should the soldiers blast it with bazookas and grenades, or be cautious and give the terrorist a chance to escape?

One of Israel’s leading documentary film makers, Cohen initiated, researched, co-wrote and directed “Ricochets,” his first feature. An army captain and veteran of the 1967 and 1973 wars, Cohen said he learned firsthand that “in a second, a soldier’s personal history--his education and moral training, personality and relationship with fellow soldiers--is compressed into the tiny muscle of his trigger finger.”

Cohen joined patrol units in Sidon, basing his characters on real soldiers, generals and Lebanese whom he met. They told him about their battlefield experiences--especially about their anxieties. Cohen recounted how a soldier described what it feels like hearing a suspicious noise in the bushes, not knowing whether to shoot. If he shoots too quickly, he may injure or kill innocent civilians; if he hesitates, he may be killed himself.

Shortly before filming began near the Israeli border, 12 soldiers were ambushed in a half-truck. “Sometimes I couldn’t sleep. I was frightened all the time,” Cohen admits. “How could I justify risking soldiers’ lives to make a film?”

The director was urged to re-create Lebanon in a safe area inside Israel, but he refused. “We were hitchhiking on history. As the cameras rolled, fiction frequently became reality. Filming in the war zone pushed everyone to greater creativity.” At all times, the “Ricochets” crew and soldier cast carried Uzi machine guns or pistols. Filming was frantic because the army only approved the script shortly before the pull-back. There was no time for reshooting.

“There was no time for tracks, dollies and elaborate lighting,” Cohen says. “I’m glad I didn’t have the time to be tempted to make a more stylized film. The outcome is unpolished, but maybe that’s the strength of the film.”

There were constant glitches, such as the time the crew set off a real army alert while blowing up a car for a terrorist scene. The officer sent to investigate was furious that Cohen’s staff hadn’t notified headquarters.

“Our film was not an army priority,” explains Cohen. “When their units needed our extras, the soldiers were returned to duty and whatever soldiers happened to be free were sent as substitutes. Many days we had different extras acting in the same parts in one scene. Let’s hope no one notices.”

Cohen preferred soldiers to professional actors for authenticity, but recruiting Shiite and Christian Lebanese for roles proved difficult. “People in the villages were very cautious. I visited a lot of families and drank endless cups of coffee. They asked about the story line and were incredulous that the army was making such a movie.”

Once, when a group of soldier/actors raged through a Lebanese woman’s house, firing blanks at a “terrorist,” she didn’t look terrified. “Then we added real sound effects to surprise her,” says Cohen, “but she remained unmoved. Was she deaf? Did I need tank guns? Finally, I realized, this film was nothing compared to the real fighting she’s lived through.”

“The army cooperated as much as any army can while waging war,” Cohen relates. “There was no interference, no officers breathing down my neck or haggling over details.” Cast and crew received regular army salaries (Cohen got a reserve captain’s standard $1,000 a month). The army provided everything--cameras, film, jeeps, tanks, guns, guards--but didn’t press Cohen to convey any messages, the film maker says: “In many scenes we never indicate whether what the soldiers are doing is right or wrong. In Lebanon, black is often white and white is often black.”

In “Ricochets,” Georgie, a shell-shocked Israeli soldier experiences this confusion. “The Christians hate the Druse and the Shiites, the Sunni and the Palestinians too. The Druse hate the Christians, the Shiites and the Syrians. The Shiites hate them all,” he says in the film. “The Sunni hate whomever their leader tells them to hate and the Palestinians hate one another. That’s in addition to hating all the other factions. There’s one common denominator. All of them together hate us, the Israelis.”

Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Moshe Levy approved the rough cut for the army, but said he had to “sleep on it” before OKing public release because of its depth, aesthetic range and emotional impact. He sent other officers to see the movie. The director and the Army Film Unit waited more than a month for approval. Highest ranking army officers were the most enthusiastic for the film, according to Cohen. But opponents argued that it is not the army’s duty to make an anti-war film, and worried that “Ricochets” could alarm new recruits.

“The army realized it was holding a hot potato,” says Cohen, particularly after word of it leaked out through reservists, who make up two-thirds of the Israeli army.

The chief of staff finally agreed to release it to the public without cuts. For it its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival--May 15, anniversary of the day of the State of Israel was declared--French police were put on alert for possible Arab terrorist attacks.

At Cannes, Egyptian journalist Rauf Taufik of Sabah Halher, called “Ricochets” “straightforward propaganda;” while Anis Mansour, a reporter for Al Ahram, told Cohen privately: “I can’t understand why your army allowed you Israelis to show so much against yourselves.”

While Cohen tries to avoid political issues, “Ricochets” is being both applauded and blasted by the Israeli public. “Everyone wanted this film to be different,” he said. The extreme left criticizes the film for not examining the political reasons for Israel’s three-year invasion into Lebanon. The extreme right claims the film ignores security reasons behind Israel’s invasion. Why a scene of soldiers accidentally killing a Lebanese child--but no mention of terrorists killing Israeli children, they want to know.

When the army decided to release “Ricochets” for the public, Marathon Pictures, a small Israeli distributor, easily beat out Cannon Films and other bigger competition. “They bid too low, assuming audiences weren’t interested in seeing more about the Lebanon war,” said Jay Kohler, Marathon president. He’s considering bids from Japanese, British, French and Dutch distributors. Fifty percent of “Ricochets” profits must be shared with the Army Film Unit. He hopes to open “Ricochets” in December in the United States.