Jordan Crist

Professor Aner Preminger

Israeli Cinema

12 October 2016

                                       Paratrooper Analysis

The film Paratrooper is an exceptional film which depicts the life of a paratrooper during boot
camp for the Israeli army. Where the protagonist is a rebellious recruit who is killed during a
routine training exercise.

To begin, our first question is whether or not Weisman (main character) committed suicide or was
killed during a training accident. In my opinion I believe he committed suicide for several main
reason. First, his journey in the paratroopers was already a mess from the second he stepped on the
base. We can link this to passing out during a stretcher exercise, being messed with while taking a
shower, and even during the opening demonstration of how to stop a solider from bleeding. All of
these examples add to the pot of reasons why Weisman would want to kill himself, yet he couldn’t do
it in a manner where he would be seen as a coward. Furthermore, leaving the paratroopers would be
seen as a disgrace since it is such a high level of honor to become one, second was his parents
could be visibly seen as a pressure point for Weisman.

As a result, he was waiting for the opportunity to leave the paratroopers in a fashion that would
be deemed respectful. This was the reason why he killed himself was he wanted to be remembered as a
paratrooper in training where he couldn’t make it out as one. So he took the short rout and decided
to kill himself by running into the building too soon after he threw the grenade.

Finally, I did enjoy this film overall. Some scenes were hard to watch for instance when Weisman
was being bullied and shoved around. This was hard for me because of how much anger you could see
in Weisman eyes to fight back but couldn’t due to how much bigger and more fit they were for the
paratroopers. Also, I noticed which was interesting the lack of female characters in the film this
gave a very different impression then the previous films we watched. Mainly since the last 3 films
we have watched and analyzed had very strong female characters, romantic storylines, and a
prominent sense of the other taking advantage of one another.