Raised to Be Heroes
2006 · 53m · Canada
Directed by Jack Silberman
Genres: documentary, essay film, war
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, provocative
Israeli combat veterans and teenagers facing conscription explain why they refuse assignments in occupied Palestinian territories despite stigma, punishment, and family pressure. Centered partly on a student awaiting trial for declining enlistment, the documentary examines conscience, loyalty, and moral limits inside military service.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone expects a doc about refuseniks to genuflect toward moral heroism, but Silberman's too smart for that—he lets the contradictions fester, lets these kids sound confused and afraid and principled all at once, which is infinitely more subversive than any easy righteousness.
A formally restrained essay film that locates itself squarely in the tradition of political documentary as moral witness; the restraint itself—the refusal to sentimentalize—becomes the film's argument, and that disciplined formal choice is what makes the conscience at stake feel genuinely contested.
The singular move here is the sound design: the quiet spaces between testimonies, the ambient hum of daily life continuing underneath these declarations of refusal, which does more to convey the cost of resistance than any scored crescendo could manage.