Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Samuel Maoz was so blown over by his experience as a soldier in Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon that it took him a quarter-century to process it.

“Lebanon” is the end result. The movie won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival last month and is a searing indictment of war, any war, all war. “Lebanon” was also screened at the London Film Festival that ended this week.

Shot inside an Israeli tank (which Maoz’s set designer recreated in a studio), “Lebanon” shows four Israeli soldiers, so young they still miss their moms, catapulted into a battle they don’t understand. Like puppets in fatigues, they receive remote orders from a brash commander, and experience the outside world through the gunsight of the tank.

Soon, they stumble into a hell beyond their control. Enemies, real or supposed, are Arabs in civilian dress whom they have orders to kill, just in case. Weary, sick and scared, the boys lose courage and composure. They weep in their steaming-hot tank, long for home, and grope for survival in a war where divisions have fairy-tale names -- Cinderella, Cornelia -- and where the final destination is a place called “San Tropez.”

Maoz decided to make the movie in 2006, as Israel fought another war in Lebanon. We’re glad he did. This unheroic real- life account should be mandatory viewing for any world leader with the power to put troops in harm’s way.

Rating: ***1/2.

‘Women Without Men’

New York-based Shirin Neshat is the world’s best-known Iranian-born artist. Her work interprets traditional male-female dynamics in Iran using black-and-white photography and video.

Neshat has now turned to moviemaking via “Women Without Men,” also screened at the London Film Festival and winner of the best-director award at the Venice Film Festival. A work of magical realism, it shows the overlapping destinies of a group of women during the 1953 coup that overthrew the popular prime minister and restored Iran’s monarch to the throne.

Cut off the sound and you end up with a beautiful piece of visual art. Landscapes, faces and bodies are filmed with skill and poetry. Neshat drains much of the color, giving her movie a vintage fifties look.

In moviemaking, though, plot, acting and dialogue count as much as visuals. The story of “Women Without Men” -- which Neshat took from the eponymous novel by Shahrnush Parsipur -- is weird and disjointed. An unhappily married woman, a self- mutilating prostitute, and a young rape victim flee to a forest where they try to bury past demons. We also meet a political activist who is buried yet comes back to life.

Neshat, whose art depicts human figures as still or moving statues, seems new to steering actors; performances are sometimes wooden. The choice of Morocco for the shoot, with its palm trees and Moorish mosaics, gives scenes an un-Iranian look.

Neshat is one of several visual artists to have taken their first crack at moviemaking recently. Steve McQueen (“Hunger”) and Sam Taylor-Wood (“Nowhere Boy”) are two others. What “Women Without Men” demonstrates is that the transition from one to the other is by no means automatic.

Rating: **.

What the Stars Mean:
 ****          Excellent
 ***           Good
 **            Average
 *             Poor
(No stars)     Worthless

(Farah Nayeri writes for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Farah Nayeri in London farahn@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 30, 2009 20:00 EDT