Waltz with Bashir

Waltz With Bashir is amongst the finest animation films I've seen. It is a very disturbing comment on war and its consequences both on countries and on people of both sides. No doubt this approach has been taken by numerous other film makers; however what sets Waltz With Bashir apart is that it takes a documentary approach and compares Israel's activities in Lebanon with atrocities in the past wars.

Other than documenting events, the film also consists of surreal dream sequences and real life incidents. Thus the film emerges as a unique combination of the real and the unreal. The hand drawn animation also makes it a delight to watch. The colour gave it the right atmosphere of claustrophobia in open spaces and the background score is fabulous.

It is certainly not, as the Director of NZ Film Festival announced before the screening, a 'feel-good film'. It should appeal to people who have an interest in animation, documentaries, war and current affairs. 10 out of 10.

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.

This film exists on several levels. It is partly a film about combat trauma, memory and repression, partly about the specifics of Israel's role in the Lebanese civil war, and partly about war in general as experienced by soldiers. It was cleverly constructed, moving back and forth from the middle-aged protagonist and his search for his lost memories via contacting old comrades, and the depiction of the actual events during the time of his and their youth. The film is mostly done in animation and uses animation in a very effective way.

I do not believe it is at all relevant what someone's political opinions are in terms of appreciating this film. The film reveals truth through taking the viewer on a journey to the past through the memories of people who witnessed the worst days of the conflict.

Let's get one thing straight from the beginning: Waltz With Bashir is an animated documentary. It may sound like a paradox, but hey, when the film played at the Cannes Film Festival (which it left with rave reviews but zero awards) it was inevitably compared to Persepolis, which is an animated autobiography. The comparison was also caused by both movies having open anti-war messages, but they couldn't be more different in concept and execution. They do have one important thing in common, though: they are animated not because it looked good, but because it was the best artistic choice the directors could make.

In the case of Ari Folman, the choice was dictated by the unique angle from which he chose to tell the story: subjectivity. Folman, like many young Israeli men in the '80s, joined the army to fight in Lebanon when he was merely 18 (this was in 1982), thinking he could serve his country in the best way possible. Once the war was over, Folman's new career began, and he is now a successful actor, director and writer (among other things, he worked on the TV show that inspired HBO's In Treatment). However, he still wasn't able to completely get over the war experience, and so he decided to make Waltz With Bashir in order to exorcise his demons, so to speak. In doing so, he delivered one of the strongest, boldest documents about the true nature of conflict.

Folman's introspective journey begins with the lack of memory: apparently, he and many of his fellow soldiers have trouble remembering the exact details of what happened in Lebanon. All they have left is dreams, like the haunting nightmare that opens the movie (26 murderous dogs surrounding the apartment of a former soldier, who believes it to be a subconscious punishment for his killing 26 dogs during a mission) or Folman's eerie flashback of himself and his friends emerging from the water after a massacre he can't (or perhaps doesn't want to) remember. Engaging in a pursuit of the truth, the director locates several people with first-hand recollections of those events, and all these people (minus two) supply their own voices for their animated counterparts.

The stream of personal anecdotes and, as said earlier, dreams, made it impossible for Folman to show real footage of what he was trying to say. After all, how do you show a live-action dream sequence in a documentary without making it look corny? Hence the winning choice of rendering the whole story through animation, with just one exception (the final scene, the one that justifies the film's existence, consists of real filmed material). This gives the picture a feel that is both evocative and down-to-earth, a bizarre but powerful combination that has earned Waltz With Bashir comparisons with the similarly merciless Apocalypse Now. Like few other films about war (Folman has openly stated he despises Hollywood's treatment of the Vietnam conflict, not counting Coppola's masterpiece), this strange, captivating opus depicts it without making it look cool: it's ugly, it's reprehensible, it's the stuff nightmares are made of - not for nothing does it still haunt Folman and his friends.

Journey of self-discovery, cinema as psychoanalysis, a document about the past, a warning for the future: Waltz With Bashir is all those things and much, much more. It's a unique piece of cinema, unmatched in its seamless mixture of raw power and peculiar visual beauty.

Ari Folman first movie was a great promise, but more than a decade passed since then and with only one feature film, and several TV series on the record his career seems to be stagnating at best. Here he comes now with a film that is so sharp, surprising and different - one of the best Israeli films ever in any genre.

Choosing to do an animated feature about the beginning of the first Lebanon war in 1982 and the collective trauma and amnesia caused by this war to its heroes - young soldier torn down from their first world life to be thrown in the violent absurdity of war - and the whole Israeli society is both a daring and natural thing to do. Daring because this film is after all a documentary about the search to the lost memory of the director about his own presence in war, and the journey to recover it by means of interviews with his fellows in arms. The real life persons are recorded while giving the interviews while extremely accurate drawn images play the visual role (one of the persons interviewed is a famous journalist showing up often on TV). As realist as these scenes are, it is hard to imagine how difficult it would have been to bring on screen the fighting scenes, or to play the trauma of the young boys shown into a terrifying and nightmarish reality. So animation was the right and natural choice. Without using special or expensive effects, the dreams and nightmare scenes are both catching and terrifying, reflecting the traumatized souls of the dreamers (one won't forget easily the opening scene).

Yet, the message of the film is far beyond the personal message. When dreams (or better said nightmares) dissipate the deep-buried reality gets back - the massacres in the Palestinian camps become real on screen, and this is the only place where Folman uses fragments of filmed material rather than animation. The nightmare became reality and its a grim one. Without ever leaving the personal and emotional plans, the political statement about a war with no winners is made loud and clear without the need of being explicit.