Close To Home-I've Never Met a Draftee Who Loved What They Were Doing

It is true, I haven't.  Not that my experience with military conscription is extensive.  I was a volunteer (the US ended the draft in 1973, though males still have to register for Selective Service, just in case). But during my years in Korea, I saw lots of draftees (males still are required to put in a couple years in the Republic of Korea Armed Forces, females can volunteer).  To a man, they seemed to regard their time as jail and could not wait to get out.  And, to be honest, very few of them struck me as honest to goodness soldiers.  I think the ones assigned to combat units and especially the few who decided the military life is the life for them are the ones who make the transition in their minds from civilian to soldier.

In Israel, all young people, men and women, have to do a couple years in that nation's armed forces. In Close To Home, we get a glimpse of a couple of girls in the Israeli Defense Forces.  Smadar is rebellious and seemingly doesn't take her role as a soldier seriously at all. Mirit is a little more poised and wants to do a good job, but unlike Smadar, her family is right there in Jerusalem and she would rather be assigned someplace else, have some new experiences and have a job besides what they do, which is going up to Arabs in the street and checking them for their ID.  The two of them try to come up with ways to kill time, avoid the attention of their commander who occasionally comes to check on her troops and try to have a a "normal" life outside their service.  They tend to be kind of lighthearted and lackadaisal in their approach until one day, a bombing does happen.

Even after than, though they seem to walk a bit straighter and gaze a little sharper, it is clear they are still in that marking time mode.  Though even the career military personell in this role seem to be uncomfortable with this particular task and view it as something to be endured, rather than embraced.

The life of a draftee whose days are spent checking IDs isn't a glorious, glamorous or exciting one.  Closer to Home makes that clear.  These two girls seem determined to find something in this experience, though.  Through it, they seem to find each other.  In the midst of social turmoil, dubious politics and military make-work drudgery, finding a new friend in which to share adversity is not nothing.

Watch this movie with some decent wine and questions.

But...keep in mind, though an unglamorous window into an unglamorous life and job, keep in mind, like the job and lives it is depicting, it is really kind of dull.