Certainly no film will be more scary, more horrifying, after seeing this unique and inexorable document edited by DanPeter, with the most frenetic editing in the world, made up of 212 video clips, whats up messages, selfies, communications with family members, cries of joy and then of fear, which are similar. They are the collective testament of the horrific attack by Hamas on October 7 at the festival of Nova Music Festival near Gazaclose to kibbutz of Re’im.
First the cheerful and carefree messages for the time and place of the meeting, then the long amazement, the never-ending disbelief, the terror and finally the awareness that it is a vast and horrible attack, without mercy, least of all the pìetas of wars. It could be the subject of a horror whose sadism would seem exaggerated, but in these images, in these 54 minutes and 23 seconds of horror, while the night is dancing in the dark, it happens that the world instead falls into darkness. This dawn is an endless interlocking of words in freedom, free expression of those who find themselves faced with the last minute of life and must recognize it and gain confidence in an instant: most of the kids thank their parents, they say, confess to them that they having loved him. The screen is almost always divided vertically by three, incredible scenes parade, with the help of the surviving photographers who sent their materials, boys and girls hiding in the grass, stuck in runaway cars, who don’t speak , they don’t say a word, they pretend to be dead, until we no longer know how to recognize them when we see this endless corpse parade.
Many, say at the end the policemen who carry out an accurate reconnaissance (we see them in a long subjective shot of those who film, open the caravans), while on the sides of the road an impressive expanse of cars and lifeless carcasses but it seems that even the cars are exhaling the ‘last. At first everyone the kids in disbelief they continue to dance, but the rain of missiles begins which soon turns into the awareness of a ruthless ad personam attack with terrorists parachuted in the middle of a youth party, who struggle to abdicate the reason for which they had arranged to meet, the desire to live. Then they start to run away and everyone gets stuck in endless traffic, sending small signals of hope with vocal messages in which they summarize in a few words the meaning of a life that will perhaps end before the cell phone turns off. What script can go that far? We are in a panic, the children say. Stay calm and alive, they say the parents.
At this point it won’t make sense anymore see war films and monster films, those that pretend the truth with the camera on one’s back, fearing the unknown of a dark forest, because they will immediately bounce back to us, and will be inexorably worse, the memories of these screams, these faces, these expressions that no actor can imitate, even the best. And someone, in the confusion, when terrorists infiltrate everywhere creating total panic, tries to pray, even sends a little message to those up there, with the noise of shouts and shots breaking into the midst of truncated words of hope. But around there are only lifeless bodies, eternal silence, debris, weapons and dispensers Coca Cola now hot and useless: the toll is 167 murdered, all under 40, 34 hostages at the party alone
