A wholly innovative, original, and vital history lesson, with pioneering animation, Waltz With Bashir delivers its message about the Middle East in a mesmerizing fashion.
A wholly innovative, original, and vital history lesson, with pioneering animation, Waltz With Bashir delivers its message about the Middle East in a mesmerizing fashion.
Director Ari Folman's animated, quasi-documentary Waltz With Bashir follows the filmmaker's emotional attempt to decipher the horrors that unfolded one night in September of 1982, when Christian militia members massacred more than 3,000 Palestinian refugees in the heart of Beirut as Israeli soldiers surrounded the area. Folman was one of those soldiers, but nearly 20 years after the fact, his memories of that night remain particularly hazy. After hearing an old friend recall a vivid nightmare in
which he is pursued by 26 ferocious dogs, Folman and his friend conclude that the dream must somehow relate to that fateful mission during the first Lebanon War. When Folman realizes that his recollections regarding that period in his life seem to have somehow been wiped clean, he travels the world to interview old friends and fellow soldiers from the war. Later, as Folman's memory begins to emerge in a series of surreal images, he begins to uncover a truth about himself that will haunt him for the rest of his days. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
It is powerful because this work of art also provides such a cautionary tale about the psychic burdens young soldiers carry deep inside them decades after they've laid down their weapons.
The flatness and stiff, jerky movement of the drawing contribute to the dreamlike, increasing dread-filled atmosphere of the visuals, which burst finally into actual filmed images of devastating impact.
Despite the director's refusal to come to terms with Israel's role in the Sabra-Shatila massacre, this is a pacifist film that ranks with "Platoon" and other classics.
Folman's use of animation permits an audience to engage with the events, such as they are recalled, in a way that the simple testimony of those involved could not achieve.
Waltz With Bashir does what many films have done before; that is convinces us that war is hell, but it does so in way that is frightening and engaging in an entirely new way.
Waltz is a challenging film in the best sense of the word. It asks questions about the nature of memory and life during a time of war without providing any pat answers.
While 'Waltz with Bashir' captures the specifics of the Lebanon campaign, there's something sadly universal about the tales that Folman and the other soldiers recount.
Folman's personal journey to recover/understand his own memories in the context of a great national nightmare is a unique, arresting documentary that will stick with you for a good long while. I was so glad I was able to see it.
Waltz With Bashir is an animated documentary (possibly made out of guilt) that artfully accounts the filmmaker's forgotten, but haunting memory of the 1982 Lebanon War, Sabra and Shatila Massacre. Ugly history presented with irresistible creativity and charm. A strong and powerful work that explores the psychological
trauma by warfare. The God-awful screams at the end are haunting.
Lavish and innovative animation only strengthen what is a bold and hard hitting document of the atrocities of war and the toll conflict takes on the mindset of those thrust into the middle of it. A gorgeous and powerful work of art.
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