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Movies / On DVD / Waltz With Bashir
Waltz With Bashir

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Waltz With Bashir

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Reviews Counted:123

Fresh:118

Rotten:5

Average Rating:8.3/10

Consensus: 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.

Rated: R [See Full Rating] for some disturbing images of atrocities, strong violence, brief nudity and a scene of graphic sexual content.

Genre: Education/General Interest

Theatrical Release:Dec 25, 2008 Limited

Box Office: $2,126,007

Synopsis: In reflecting upon his time spent in the Israeli army, filmmaker Ari Folman has produced WALTZ WITH BASHIR, a profoundly moving antiwar meditation that is equal parts personal memoir, history... In reflecting upon his time spent in the Israeli army, filmmaker Ari Folman has produced WALTZ WITH BASHIR, a profoundly moving antiwar meditation that is equal parts personal memoir, history lesson, and animated fever dream. In 1982, Folman was a soldier during Israel's first invasion of Lebanon. This was a painful moment in history, when the newly elected president of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, was killed in an explosion. Furious, his party, the Christian Phalangists, retaliated by storming into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps and massacring thousands of innocent victims. Over 20 years later, Folman is disturbed to realize that he has no memory of this incident even though he was there at the time. In order to remember, he tracks down several of his friends and soldiers who were there with him to find out what really happened. WALTZ WITH BASHIR is as difficult to categorize as it is to forget. It is a truly startling achievement, a film that can be classified as animation and documentary and history and fiction. It is all of those things at once, and it is also much more than that. Folman uses a combination of Flash animation, 3D, and classic animation to bring his film to visual life, but it is the beautifully haunting score by acclaimed German composer Max Richter that provides the film with its heart and soul. As WALTZ WITH BASHIR unfolds in dreamlike waves, Folman understands that guilt is a dangerous thing, and war is even worse. [More]

Director: Ari Folman

Director: Ari Folman
Screenwriter: Ari Folman
Producer: , Serge Lalou, Gerhard Meixner, Roman Paul
Composer: Max Richter
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics

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Release:

Jun 23, 2009

[DVD Details]
 
 

DVD Features:

  • Region [unknown]
  • Keep Case
  • Anamorphic Widescreen - 1.78

Audio:

  • Dolby Digital 5.1 - Hebrew
  • Dubbed, Subtitles - English
  • Subtitles - SDH

Additional Release Material:

Behind the Scenes:

  • 1. Building The Scenes - Animatics

Audio Commentary:

  • 1. Director's Commentary

Interviews:

  • 1. Q & A With Director Ari Folman

Making Of:

  • 1. Surreal Soldiers: Making Waltz With Bashir
 
 
 
 

Reviews for Waltz With Bashir

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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Visually striking, but there is a significant problem in that Folman and his fellow veterans are presented as victims rather than victimizers.

Full Review Source: EDGE Boston | comment Comment
12/13/09
Phil Hall
Phil Hall
EDGE Boston

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.

Full Review Source: Bangitout.com | comment Comment
12/02/09
Jordan Hiller
Jordan Hiller
Bangitout.com

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.

Full Review Source: Washington Times | comment Comment
08/30/09
Sonny Bunch
Sonny Bunch
Washington Times

An arresting concept, yet the resulting film is skimpy, numbing, and less searching than it believes it is

Full Review Source: CinePassion | comment Comment
08/26/09
Fernando F. Croce
Fernando F. Croce
CinePassion

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel | comment Comment
07/16/09
Roger Moore
Roger Moore
Orlando Sentinel

it feels like a fever dream, but moves forward with the churning internal logic and dogged persistence of a mystery-thriller

Full Review Source: Q Network Film Desk | comment Comment
06/30/09
James Kendrick
James Kendrick
Q Network Film Desk

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.

Full Review Source: Cinerina | comment Comment
05/31/09
Karina Montgomery
Karina Montgomery
Cinerina

Par le biais d'une approche filmique unique et novatrice, Ari Folman dresse un portrait sensible, effrayant et révoltant de la guerre.

Full Review Source: Panorama | comment Comment
05/14/09
Jean-François Vandeuren
Jean-François Vandeuren
Panorama

O último segundo de filme justifica, por si só, a necessidade inconsciente do cineasta em reprimir suas próprias lembranças.

Full Review Source: Cinema em Cena | comment Comment
04/04/09
Pablo Villaca
Pablo Villaca
Cinema em Cena

An extraordinary work of art that commands you to watch it more than once, and reveals itself anew each time you see it. Waltz With Bashir is a rare masterpiece that must be treasured.

Full Review Source: About.com | comment Comment
04/03/09
Jennifer Merin
Jennifer Merin
About.com

A thoughtful and original piece, revisiting the traumatic effects of the war in Lebanon in 1982.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
04/01/09
Dennis Schwartz
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

...a jarring and devastating animated documentary that explores the psychological trauma inflicted by warfare as well as any live-action war epic I've seen.

Full Review Source: LarsenOnFilm | comment Comment
03/26/09
Josh Larsen
Josh Larsen
LarsenOnFilm

The Oscar-nominated "Waltz With Bashir," by Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman, is a dream-like movie, told in unique animation, about the horrors of war.

Full Review Source: Quad City Times (Davenport, IA) | comment Comment
03/21/09
Linda Cook
Linda Cook
Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)

This darkly serious film is a glaring example of the wide gap in cinematic taste between American and European audiences.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Spectrum | comment Comment
03/20/09
Keith Cohen
Keith Cohen
Entertainment Spectrum

Although the film focuses on a particular conflict, it paints war in general as an absurd and primitive exercise that seems as inexplicable to its perpetrators as to its victims.

Full Review Source: Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) | comment Comment
03/06/09
John Beifuss
John Beifuss
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

Ari Folman, who wrote and directed Waltz with Bashir, creates an intriguing film. He uses unique animation which features muted, ochre imagery. It's like a nightmare from which you awake. But you stay unsettled for a long time.

Full Review Source: tonymacklin.net | comment Comment
03/04/09
Tony Macklin
Tony Macklin
tonymacklin.net

"Bashir" is an animated film that mixes truth, memory and fantasy in a phantasmagoric concoction that is hard for the viewer to shake.

Full Review Source: Capital Times (Madison, WI) | comment Comment
02/27/09
Rob Thomas
Rob Thomas
Capital Times (Madison, WI)

An experience that will haunt all who see it.

Full Review Source: Kansas City Star | comment Comment
02/27/09
Robert W. Butler
Robert W. Butler
Kansas City Star

It's encouraging to see a nation so aware of its public image and defensive about its military decisions examine a dark day in its history.

Full Review Source: Charlotte Observer | comment Comment
02/27/09
Lawrence Toppman
Lawrence Toppman
Charlotte Observer

... a shattering personal story about how we absorb and submerge atrocity.

Full Review Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | comment Comment
02/27/09
Philip Martin
Philip Martin
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
 
 
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Latest News for Waltz With Bashir

June 22, 2009: RT on DVD: Waltz with a Shopaholic Pink Panther in Wonderland
There's something for everyone this week on DVD, starting with an Oscar-nominated animated documentary (Waltz with Bashir), a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced chick flick (Confessions... More...

January 13, 2009: Academy Names Nine Foreign Film Finalists
The Academy has narrowed its choices for this year's recipient of the Best Foreign Language Film Award, choosing its favorite nine releases from a field of 65. More...

January 08, 2009: The Israeli Apocalypse Now blasts into movie theaters, in animation! And pulls it off to vividly surreal effect. Director Folman, a soldier and eyewitness to the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Palestinian massacres, painfully dredges up his own personal demons. Opens in new window
More...

January 08, 2009: Broadcast Film Critics Name Critics' Choice Winners
The 14th Annual Critics' Choice Awards were given on January 8, 2009, to honor the finest achievements in 2008 filmmaking. A list of nominees follows below, with winners in bold: More...

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