Waltz with Bashir

Waltz with Bashir may not deliver everything you expect after seeing the trailers, but it is powerful. Director Ari Folman presents a personal view of historic events in which he took part as a young soldier, but which he cannot remember due to repression. A full-length documentary, filmed with animation over the recorded speech of actual participants in the 1982 Lebannon War, Waltz with Bashir is beautifully done and get its message across clearly.

It's a shame that some of the stronger artistic points in the movie were left undeveloped, such as the imaginary ghost of the soldier's ex-girlfriend following him around (as seen in the trailer). The way comedy and tragedy are interspersed in the latter parts of the film may also seem inappropriate to some viewers. The film presents a highly personal point of view for a documentary, justified partly by staying true to the factual material, and partly by its author having been there on the scene.

Overall, despite its shortcomings, this film makes a strong statement and is definitely worth seeing for its visuals and score.

Animation is not just for children - the French "Persepolis" (about a girl in Iran) made that clear and the Israeli "Waltz With Bashir" (about the invasion of Lebanon) dramatically underlines the point. The Israeli work was written , produced and directed by Ari Folman and is based on his experiences as a soldier and his video of his exploration of the traumatic events some 20 years later. Like any really powerful film, the opening and closing sequences are stunning - but the intervening one and half hours contain so many moving and disturbing images - some simply surreal - that the animation plays in the mind long after the credits have rolled.

The title is a reference to Bashir Gemayel, the newly appointed President of Lebanon, who was assassinated on 14 September 1982 following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon on 6 June 1982. The assassination led the Israeli command to authorise the entrance of a force of approximately 150 Phalangist fighters into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, resulting in a massacre of at least 800 civilians. It is this horrific incident that is the emotional heart of the movie and the cause of Folman's mental repression.

Although I saw it last night I am still unsure of my reaction to "Waltz with Bashir". I'm still digesting the film, attempting to understand more about it, still wondering if I found it remarkable or disappointing, if I thought its moral sensibilities were sound or superficially apologetic. Perhaps the ultimate irony in the film is that its main themes are those of willful ignorance and of amnesia, or willing repression of memories by the Israeli soldiers on whom the film focuses, but, as pointed out by the great film critic Joumane Chahine (who loved the film) in Film Comment: "It's not that Folman minimizes Israel's complicity in the events, the IDF's logistical involvement has long been a matter of record... The film's more individual perspective justifies circumventing the matter. But the film's discreet arrogance is that, in contrast, it confronts head-on the brutality of the Lebanese Christian Phalanges who perpetrated the butchery. And while the Arabs' treatment of their Palestinian 'brethren' has hardly been exemplary, there is something particularly distasteful- somehow akin to watching a German film about Vichy France's treatment of Jews during World War II- about being lectured on this by the Israelis."

I did find this attitude highly ironic. The Israeli soldiers, the men he actually knew, are all, bar none (except for defence minister Ariel Sharon, who unquestionably was responsible at least in part for the proved massacre of anywhere between two to three and half thousand civilians of all ages and genders, and his presence also ties in with the theme of amnesia- after the massacre hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in protest of the IDF's involvement thanks to Sharon's decisions, but many years later they allowed him to become Prime Minister), sweet, good, morally perfect people. Yet the Christians are portrayed almost literally as dogs. Inhuman, brutal, violent, sick, and fetishistic with regard to their leader. The film makes a huge deal about the dead children and older men and women the soldiers saw in the camps, but Ari Folman doesn't even seem to think about the women, children, and seniors killed in air strikes and even ground initiatives by the IDF during the same war. Somehow, only what the Arab Christians did is truly horrifying. A little hypocrisy at play, or is it a matter of even more suppressed memories?

All that said, I still found the film affecting, and its technical merits are unquestionably outstanding. The animation is gorgeous, the music even more special, and the film is a remarkable, rare exploration of how the guilt and pain these men feel to this day haunts them. It's not new subject matter, but the specifics of this film make it unique, that it focuses on the IDF's involvement in one of the most heinous massacres of the late twentieth century, and moreover that it focuses on involvement by young men who wouldn't have even been sure of what exactly was happening. The film's psychoanalytic approach (it is an 'animated documentary', but I suspect much of it was written, although I'm sure those interviewed were definitely quoted truthfully at many points, but what they say is a little too conveniently attached to the film's themes) is not always successful, and sometimes painfully obvious and tired ("You weren't thinking of these camps, but those camps" or "Unwillingly, you had stepped into the shoes of a Nazi"). Still, the imagery and music, as well as the genuine sincerity and honesty of the film (as well as its subjectivity) make it worthwhile viewing. It's extremely well-crafted and for the most part psychologically interesting, that much is for sure. It's also worth noting that the controversial ending worked for this viewer. Not cheap, not exploitative, but only a stark, brutal reminder of just how real it was.

I saw this film at the AFI Film Festival a couple of months ago and it stayed with me since then. This is not your typical war movie, nor is it your typical animated film. I'd say its kind of a cross between Waking Life and Grave of the Fireflies.

The film takes place in the present. The film's director, Ari Folman, comes to the realization that he cannot remember anything from the time he served in the Israeli army during the 1982 Lebanon War. The bulk of the movie are his interviews with his old army friends where he asks them what they remember from that time. Folman tries to see in their memories something in himself that has been missing, deadened, or dulled. Like Waking Life, there is no "plot." The filmmaker prefers a more interview-based film. This is an "idea film," a poetic film, and traditional narrative style takes a back seat.

Like Grave of the Fireflies, the animation in Waltz With Bashir shows the horror of war and its effect on individuals in ways that a live action recreation could never replicate. The film's themes of human memory and its elasticity are served well by this technique. Rather than a soldier escaping death by hiding in the sea, we get the larger-than-life memory of a soldier escaping death that would look too "real" in a live action reenactment.

I just came back from watching the movie. I found it interesting and unique. The animation in the film is magnificent and enables the director to really "go wild" with his ideas, without having to be "chained" to what reality filming can give him. The main Character, is on a journey, trying to collect as many memories as he can of the time when he was a young soldier, at war. This journey is so well done, touching, interesting. The man, Ari, slowly revels his past, and we follow him, to an amazing trip down memory lane. Memories that were hidden for too long. An amazing movie that makes you think about life, people, and the complexity of war.