Foxtrot 2017

From the start, Michael Feldman and Daphna Feldman are introduced as a well-to-do Tel Aviv couple whose world tilts when they learn their son, Jonathan, has died in the line of duty. The Israel Defense Forces deliver the news with a clinical detachment, withholding details about where and how Jonathan died or whether his body has been recovered. Only hours later does a follow-up notification arrive, revealing—almost in passing—that a grave mix-up occurred and it was another Jonathan Feldman who was killed. An irate Michael presses for his son’s return, insisting on bringing him home immediately and pulling strings to speed up the homecoming, even as the authorities promise Jonathan will arrive by the next day.

At a remote outpost, Jonathan and three other soldiers guard a desolate checkpoint, living in a dilapidated cargo container that leans into the mud as night settles in. The days blend into long, quiet hours, and to pass the time, the young man recounts a memory from his father’s past—a treasured heirloom preserved through the Holocaust that was traded for a porn magazine. The routine takes a darker turn late one night when a misjudgment—one soldier mistaking a beer can that rolled from the Palestinians’ car for a grenade—sparks a violent escalation. Jonathan kills four young Palestinians, and the incident triggers a formal report. Senior IDF officers arrive on the scene and move quickly to bury the car with the dead inside, a decision made under a cloud of fear and consequence. They are warned not to disclose what happened, and as the tension tightens, a senior officer receives a call from Michael’s connection, who relays a chilling message: Jonathan will be returning home with him.

Six months pass, and Michael and Daphna reunite to commemorate their son’s twentieth birthday. The mood is heavy with unresolved grief and guilt, and it’s revealed that Jonathan died on his way home rather than merely returning from service. The pain has driven the couple apart; each blames the other’s choices and temperament for the tragedy. In a moment of shared intoxication, they reflect on their son’s final drawing—an image of a bulldozer carrying a car. Each interprets it through a prism of blame and longing: one suggests the other is the bulldozer, while they themselves are the car, a symbolic reversal of power and vulnerability that speaks to their fractured relationship.

As the evening unfolds, Michael opens up about the darker memories he has carried from his time in the army—witnessing the deaths of several comrades, memories that left him feeling complicit. He describes Jonathan’s birth as a kind of absolution for those other losses, while Daphna’s own dilemma during pregnancy—whether to continue or abort—adds another layer of internal conflict to their already strained marriage.

In the final scene, the momentum of the tale returns to a visceral, precarious moment. Jonathan is being driven back toward Tel Aviv in a military vehicle along a narrow, rutted desert road. The journey takes a sudden turn when the convoy swerves to avoid a camel and the vehicle veers off course, rolling down an embankment. The camera lingers on the aftermath with a stark, unsettled quiet, underscoring the fragile line between duty, memory, and unresolved grief.

A dense meditation on memory, guilt, and the costs of a life lived under the pressures of conflict, the film lingers in the mind with its quiet, relentless examination of how parents—tethered to a son they never truly had back—thread their way through fear, blame, and the search for meaning.