The Gatekeepers

Overview

"Imagine you're tracking a terrorist" begins the unseen voice in the opening shot of Dror Moreh's unnerving documentary The Gatekeepers. "You know they're planning an imminent attack and you know they're in a car that your teams have finally located." As he narrates, the clouds on the screen part to reveal footage from a drone flying high above a city. "What you don't know, though, is where they're going to be an hour from now, or who else is in the car with them. So…what do you do?"

Moments later there's a flash, an explosion, and the car is destroyed in what you realise is real-world footage of an assassination. In the corner of the screen, an injured bystander slowly attempts to crawl away from the flaming carnage.

This is the story of the Shin Bet — Israel's highly secretive internal security service — as told by all six surviving leaders, past and present (and, notably, the only members whose identities are ever made public). Divided into seven sections with austere headings like: 'Collateral Damage', 'Forget About Morality' and 'Victory Is to See You Suffer', The Gatekeepers offers an extraordinary insight into one of the most clandestine organisations in living history. Like 2003's Academy Award-winning film The Fog of War, these interviews reveal both the strategic and philosophical considerations behind some of the organisations most famous (and infamous) operations; however, unlike Robert S. McNamara, the disclosures of these men are remarkably unsentimental and make little attempt at any justification.

With their stewardship spanning decades of momentous upheaval, including the 6-Day War, the hijacking of the 300 bus, the invasion of Lebanon, the two Intifadas and the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, there's no shortage of material for the narrators to delve into despite the large pockets of history that remain classified. Rarely do the scenarios veer even close to black-and-white morality, and, not surprisingly, it's questions of assassination and torture that prove most compelling. "What's unnatural is the power you have" , explains the Shin Bet's most recent chief Yuval Diskin, "the power you have to take three people, terrorists, and take their lives in an instant." In all, The Gatekeepers is a candid, revelatory and at times disturbing film that represents one of the 'must-sees' of 2013.