Film Review: Waltz With Bashir


Fig 1. Waltz With Bashir (2008)

The 2008 Israeli animated film Waltz With Bashir, directed by Ari Folman, seems to be more of a history lesson than a film to kick back and watch. It also seems to act as a kind of warning to not forget about the past along with telling the viewer that we must also find a way to forgive ourselves for what we have done and what we have been a part of.

Set in 2006 the film focuses on the director himself trying to work out why he can’t remember anything from the Lebanon War that took place in the 1982 that he was a part of when he was 19, in particular the Sabra and Shatila massacre that took place in the refugee camps. After talking with friends, he goes looking for other people who were there at the same time to ask them about what they remember and what happened to them in the war. After hearing their stories and thoughts on what happen Folman slowly starts piecing together what happened at the camps and where he was when it happened before fully understand what part he played in it and why he has forgotten that time in his life.

When people first see Waltz With Bashir they might think that it was acted out by real people and then rotoscoped but it wasn’t. The whole animated part of the film was made in flash with some parts of it being hand drawn and blended together.

It’s only at the end of the film, when the scale of the massacre is revealed, it suddenly switches to life action footage of the aftermath massacre. This could have been done of several reasons such as showing the viewer that the story of the film did take place as is not fictional along with symbolising that the reality of the event has hit Folman and he now fulling remembers what happened.

It can be seen that the film might be a type of therapy for Folman to help him deal with what he saw and to make it clear to other generations what happened. In an interview Folman talks about it as a way of telling his children what happened as he is unable to remember and warn them about the horrors of war “I discovered a lot of heavy stuff regarding my past… This makes you wonder, maybe I am doing all this for my sons. When they grow up and watch the film, it might help them make the right decisions, meaning not to take part in any war” (Walsh, 2008)

Many have given the film credit for the way that it has used animation to tell the events shown in a respective manner as well as showing them in the way that the soldiers in the war would have seem it. “...high-contrast animation is the lifebreath of Folman’s film, appropriately moving the interviewees’ recollections away from the talking-head/archive-footage standard and towards something gorgeously graphical and soaringly inventive.” (Jolin, 2015) Folman was there himself and so knows what happened and that there was no way he could gloss over the facts or tone down the imagery.

However, a number of Arab counties have looked negatively at the film including the country that it is set in, Lebanon, and have banned the film. The reason for the ban is because it focuses on a dark part of the country’s history even if the film is anti-war and trying to give the message of not forgetting what happened in said all those years ago, although some have been able to get hold of copies of Waltz With Bashir and have shown it at private screenings. Lokman Slim, who held one of these private screenings, said “I feel jealous that those we should consider our enemies have the courage to revisit events in which they were involved, while we Lebanese are in an endless silence regarding our history.” (Nasr, 2009) It seems that the people of Lebanon also don’t want to forget their past just like.

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