Don’t miss this brilliant film in the end-of-year rush. Based on filmmaker Ari Folman’s recollection of being an Israeli soldier in the Lebanon war of 1982, Waltz with Bashir is an animated pseudo-documentary that remains highly personal yet strange and unsettling.
The autobiographical film follows Folman as he meets up with old faces from the past (including a psychiatrist friend), trying to regain the parts of his memory lost to post-war trauma. It’s not so much a history lesson, but rather a very human perspective on the shit storm that resulted in the deaths of three thousand Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps (see Wikipedia).
The surreal animation style works brilliantly, capturing a haunting dreamlike quality – more an evocative representation of mood than a literal re-enactment of events. 80s period details, such as This Is Not A Love Song by Public Image Limited on the soundtrack, place the film in a nostalgic context.
If at times the flickery hand-drawn images create a distancing barrier between film and audience, the final few horrific images of real-life video footage push through that curtain to devastate us with the truth.
Waltz with Bashir is a pick for one of the most fascinating films of the past year. Interesting not only for the way it is presented, but also in the way it evokes a mournful mood of regret with such clarity. See it.
