EAU CLAIRE — Amos Gitai’s “Kippur” (2000), an Israeli feature that the Village Voice called “a new sort of war film ... shockingly vivid and overwhelmingly antiheroic,” will screen April 19-22 at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
          The International Film Society will present the 120-minute drama Thursday through Sunday at 6 and 8:30 p.m. in Schofield Auditorium.
          Based on the director’s own combat experiences, “Kippur” is the first Israeli feature to depict the Yom Kippur War of October 1973 — a brief, intense war that followed Egypt and Syria’s surprise attack on Israel.
          When the war begins, Weinraub (the director’s alter ego played by Liron Levo) and his gung-ho buddy Ruso (Tomer Ruso) search in vain for their unit at the front. In the chaotic atmosphere they decide to join an aerial rescue unit flying a helicopter behind enemy lines. Their excitement and enthusiasm soon is replaced by revulsion and exhaustion as their team flies constant missions to and from the Golan Heights, evacuating the dead and wounded.
          “Like many war stories, this one is about the disillusionment of brash young men,” wrote The New York Times. “The smashing of this idealism is quick and brutal. In its place comes not any deep, consoling knowledge of human nature but a state of dazed cynicism.”
          In Hebrew (subtitled in English), the film is not rated.
          Tickets, available at the University Service Center, (715) 836-3727, are $2 for International Film Society members and UW-Eau Claire faculty and staff or $1 for UW-Eau Claire students.
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JS/BW

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Updated: April 5, 2001