Though almost entirely animated, it’s no cartoon. “Waltz with Bashir” is an interesting aesthetic experiment in graphic novel style.
The best foreign language film winner at this month’s Golden Globes, nominated for an Oscar on Thursday, this intense original memoir from Israel is an aural documentary that looks back on the Lebanon War and the infamous civilian Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982. But the visuals to illustrate the interviews and most of the battle-time reminiscences have been drawn instead of traditionally presented as live action.
By using the animation medium to tell his story, director-writer Ari Folman is able to include renderings of the nightmares that replaced his recollection of the atrocity he witnessed as a young Israeli soldier in that war. He also preserves some of the physical anonymity of his interviewees by drawing instead of filming them, Moreover, animation allows the now middle-aged filmmaker to bring in artistic imagination to heighten the hallucinatory realm between memory and reality that he is trying to explore.
The Israeli experience in the Lebanon War of the ’80s can be compared with the American experience in Vietnam. The objectives, the outcome, and the morality of it were less clear-cut than in past wars about more immediate national survival. Folman’s introspection and his discussions here with fellow soldiers, psychiatrists, and journalists — who help jog his recall — reflect what might be a larger national soul-searching about that era.
The title comes from the name of the Lebanese leader, Bashir, whose assassination set in motion the civil conflict that soon drew in Israeli involvement. The vengeful followers of Bashir, the Christian Phalangists, slaughtered hundreds of Palestinian men, women and children. Meanwhile, the Israeli military and political hierarchy knew about it but did not stop it. This title’s idea of waltzing or “following along” with the pervasive image of the martyred Bashir becomes a powerful metaphor for what Folman is doing in dredging up the past and what a government did by doing nothing.
“Waltz with Bashir” resembles another similarly formatted but more emotionally engaging film about personal journey and public oppression in the Middle East. For last year’s award-winning animation “Persepolis,” Marjane Satrapi traced how she survived the Iranian Revolution with her lively spirit intact. Both films demonstrate the wounds — and the genius — to be found in that troubled region.
Quick Info
“Waltz With Bashir”
3 out of 5 Stars
Director: Ari Folman
Rated R for some disturbing images of atrocities, strong violence, brief nudity and a scene of graphic sexual content.
Running Time: 90 minutes
In Hebrew with English subtitles
