I find that when it comes to watching documentaries I have the general (if not misguided) tendency of avoiding documentaries focusing on wars and armed conflict. I don't think that this is necessarily because I'm uncomfortable with the subject matter, or even the quality of the films themselves, but more that  these films often focus on the political cause and effect, while inevitably coming to the conclusion that the war was either justified or that it wasn't.

However, as I walked into my local cinema the other week, I found myself buying a ticket to see Israeli documentary maker Avi Mograbi's latest film, Z32.

Mograbi's latest work is different from most war-related documentaries in that it focuses on a young man who was formally a member of the IDF and an elite unit of the Israeli army that was involved in a revenge operation resulting in the deaths of six Palestinian officers. The film is divided into two main sections: in one, the man confronts his girlfriend about his past actions and asks for forgiveness in a confessional-type setting; in the other, Mograbi offers his own musical commentary, accompanied by a small orchestra seated in his living room.

But what makes this film so riveting is not the idea of revenge or the issues behind why the killing occurred in the first place, but rather what lies in the aftermath of violence — how do you reconcile the fact that someone you love has killed, and does the adrenaline hierarchical context in which war-related violence happened matter or automatically justify forgiveness?

Mograbi expertly crafts these confessions by making the viewer painfully aware of the process of forgiveness. In experimenting with masking the man and his girlfriend in various manners, he wrestles with issues such as the responsibility to portray a  man's identity who otherwise might be brought to trial and the importance of individual identity in the context of war. After all, the soldier's face behind the mask could well be that of any other.

What Z32 accomplishes is not finding an answer to the question of whether crimes committed during war carry the same responsibility as crimes committed otherwise or even seeking forgiveness for a man whose actions were no different than the orders carried out by thousands of other soldiers. What Mograbi's film does do is appeal to the viewer to confront these moral dilemmas with him.

Z32 has been featured at various film festivals during 2009, including the San Francisco and Venice Film Festivals, and is currently in theatres worldwide.

Lara Gabrielle Blanco Heintz