This is an animated documentary about the director's efforts to find out what he did when he was in Lebanon during the Israeli invasion of the early 1980's. It seems that the director discovered that he did not remember a great deal of what happened and that he suspected that he may have been involved with notorious massacres in two refugee camps. As the director makes an effort to get in touch with old army buddies and anyone who might of have been in the area he finds that what everyone remembers is all colored differently and he discovers what a tricky thing our memories are.
In the wake of great acclaim, numerous awards and a bit of controversy at the Oscars (many people felt it was the best documentary and animated film but it was instead nominated as Best Foreign Language film) I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I sat down to watch this film. I was expecting to have my socks knocked off. Instead I found that I wasn't all that impressed by what I was seeing. It's not a bad film, but at the same time I don't think its all that special. For me the problem is that I never connected with what was going on. Yes I was intrigued and yes I found some of the discussions about what happened and what was remembered interesting, but at the same time I was not connected emotionally. I never felt anything at any point, so that when the film switches in its final moments to live action footage of the massacre I wasn't moved, feeling that what I was seeing was a foregone conclusion of shock value.
I think the problem comes from the organization of the material which meanders too much in the telling. Granted the purpose of the tale is the directors self revelations, but at the same time it's a bit too unfocused. On a personal level I found that the animation takes away from the personal accounts. Watching several of the sequences a couple of times, in Hebrew, in English and unanimated in the extras section of the disc, I found that I was moved more by the unanimated footage. Watching the interviews of the people with out their animated counterparts over them I found that I was moved more by what I was seeing. There was something about their facial expressions and body language that added to their tales. These factors I thought were diminished by the animation (in the interest of full disclosure I'm not a huge fan of the style of animation used to begin with) This isn't to say that the film is bad. It's not. It's an often compelling tale. I was often riveted by some of the stories told, for example the story of the soldier who was the only survivor of his tank crew and who swam out to sea to escape, the reporter striding through a battle that was killing all of the soldiers around him, and the sequences showing the collateral damage of war made me sit up and take notice, I just never connected for anything longer then a sequence.
In the end the film is worth seeing. I just don't see that the film is as revelatory as some have made it out to be.
In the wake of great acclaim, numerous awards and a bit of controversy at the Oscars (many people felt it was the best documentary and animated film but it was instead nominated as Best Foreign Language film) I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I sat down to watch this film. I was expecting to have my socks knocked off. Instead I found that I wasn't all that impressed by what I was seeing. It's not a bad film, but at the same time I don't think its all that special. For me the problem is that I never connected with what was going on. Yes I was intrigued and yes I found some of the discussions about what happened and what was remembered interesting, but at the same time I was not connected emotionally. I never felt anything at any point, so that when the film switches in its final moments to live action footage of the massacre I wasn't moved, feeling that what I was seeing was a foregone conclusion of shock value.
I think the problem comes from the organization of the material which meanders too much in the telling. Granted the purpose of the tale is the directors self revelations, but at the same time it's a bit too unfocused. On a personal level I found that the animation takes away from the personal accounts. Watching several of the sequences a couple of times, in Hebrew, in English and unanimated in the extras section of the disc, I found that I was moved more by the unanimated footage. Watching the interviews of the people with out their animated counterparts over them I found that I was moved more by what I was seeing. There was something about their facial expressions and body language that added to their tales. These factors I thought were diminished by the animation (in the interest of full disclosure I'm not a huge fan of the style of animation used to begin with) This isn't to say that the film is bad. It's not. It's an often compelling tale. I was often riveted by some of the stories told, for example the story of the soldier who was the only survivor of his tank crew and who swam out to sea to escape, the reporter striding through a battle that was killing all of the soldiers around him, and the sequences showing the collateral damage of war made me sit up and take notice, I just never connected for anything longer then a sequence.
In the end the film is worth seeing. I just don't see that the film is as revelatory as some have made it out to be.