Waltz With Bashir

Twenty-six rabid dogs tear through the streets, foaming at the mouth, seeking their target: a middle-aged man with glasses. He wakes with their barks, walks to his balcony and stares down into their flaming eyes. He has this dream each and every night and has, ostensibly, ever since the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. His recounting of this dream over a few drinks is where Waltz With Bashir, Ari Folman’s beautiful new animated documentary, begins.

The film is centered on Folman's quest for the moments, the rather large chunks of time, that he has forgotten since his tour of duty 25 years ago. The film is a self-propelled search for truth in the shadow of war—a powerhouse of self-reflection through which the audience may encounter some provocative ideas relevant to their own lives. After all, Waltz With Bashir is a film that obsesses in its exploration of the most malleable human tool: memory.

In his utilization of animation, Folman is able to transmute what would have been a standard documentary style narrative into something more engaging. The images, painstakingly hand-drawn by David Polonsky and his team of illustrators, reflect the horrors of war in a mesmerizing, surrealist manner. Each moment seems strung out and extended. Each step a character takes is slow, detached, and without hesitation. The process captures perfectly the idea that these young men, the conscripted soldiers of Israel’s war, are outside of themselves. This is not real for them. It is a dream in the same way that much of Waltz With Bashir passes as a dream. At any given moment, however, Folman can choose to tear down fantasy’s walls, leaving reality in all of its gruesomeness to burst forth.

As the film wears on, absorbing the audience fully into what is occurring or, more accurately, what has occurred, more and more layers of Folman's memory are unearthed. In Amsterdam one day, en route to the airport to return home to Israel, the flood of repressed images tears through. Folman, as hard as he may have tried, can no longer remain the distanced youth he once was. These images have unknowingly taken a toll on him, on his friends, on Israel.

One image is that of a young Palestinian boy in an orchard with an RPG that an Israeli unit takes out. The 26 dogs referred to earlier are reminders to the one recalling those images, of the dogs he sniped as his unit entered villages. The director himself dreams of walking out of the sea along with two comrades and turning to see Beirut in flames. Flares soar across the sky and there seems to be guilt attached to the young men as they stand, dumbfounded in their false purity, and watch like moviegoers. All of these images make up the cloth of Folman and the interviewee's collective memory—the memory of innocence lost, of death witnessed too soon as if it were nothing.

At the heart of Waltz With Bashir is what lies at the heart of narrative films such as Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, and others: the futility of war, the uselessness of war. While Folman's film is without a doubt well-balanced and fair, there is a plaguing sense of distance that allows the audience to understand the director's perspective. In his mind, there is absolutely no question as to whether war is worthwhile or not. Because of this, the film is less about constructing some chastising polemic and more concerned with the humanity hidden beneath all of the political nonsense.

In the end, Waltz With Bashir is "nothing like you've seen in American movies. No glam, no glory—just very young men going nowhere, shooting at no one they know, getting shot at by no one they know, then going home and trying to forget. Sometimes they can." It seems like a good thing that Folman made the conscious choice to take a chance and remember.

—Alex Cripe
01.05.09

If anyone still harbors doubts as to whether animation can be used to tell a serious-minded story and not simply to entertain children on a Saturday morning, that questioning soul need look no further than Waltz With Bashir to witness just how effective the medium can be at dealing with mature issues with sincerity and reverence. Even if a soldier manages to avoid getting physically wounded in war, no one returns form the battlefield unscathed, and when filmmaker Ari Folman attempts to help a fellow veteran of the Lebanon War discover the hidden meaning of a recurring nightmare, he begins questioning the fact that the war seems to have had no discernible effect on him psychologically. But it has, and as his quest to help a friend find meaning in the abstract commences, Folman discovers that some memories can be so dark that it takes the light of reflection to illuminate them.
Over two decades after the first Lebanon War, an old friend of Folman's summons the filmmaker to a bar to discuss a recurring nightmare in which a pack of 26 vicious dogs sits snarling outside of his window, awaiting the perfect opportunity to strike. Eventually, the two men conclude that the nightmare has something to do with the Israeli mission during the war. Until this night, Folman always thought that he had managed to elude any such lingering trauma. Shortly after leaving the bar, however, he begins experiencing a strange vision in which he and two other soldiers emerge from the sea and walk into Lebanon, where a mob of screaming Palestinians begins to flood the streets. But Folman has no memory of the actual events that took place that day, only a fleeting vision that could possibly be related to the Sabra and Shatila massacre, where Christian Phalangists systematically slaughtered 2,000 Palestinians while their refugee camps were under control of the Israeli army. Folman has no memory of the actual massacre, so in order to get some answers he begins tracking down some of his old army friends. Piece by piece, the mystery begins to come together, prompting Folman to realize just what he had witnessed on that awful, fateful day.
Despite being a film that deals with so much death and sorrow, Waltz With Bashir is vital and vivid from the opening frames. It presents a sobering topic filtered through a hallucinogenic frame, and as such, it commands the audience's attention from the first thrilling second to the devastating final shot. Few films can honestly claim to be totally unique, but the way that Folman uses animation to recount his amazing psychological journey makes it truly one of a kind. It's a captivating mystery, a profound investigation into the power of memory, a soul-searching autobiography, and an unflinching war drama, all wrapped up in a highly stylized package that, when the truth finally emerges, emphasizes the horrifying realities of war and personal accountability in a way that cuts straight to the bone. As a filmmaker, Folman seems to realize that the best hope for instilling that message is to ensure that, despite the remarkably heavy and intense subject matter, Waltz With Bashir remains consistently entertaining. And it is, thanks to the striking visuals, expert pacing, and pulsating soundtrack.

Still, lest we find ourselves drifting too deep into the medium and forgetting the message, Folman sends us off with an expertly placed sucker punch that pulls us back to reality just in time to ensure that the message is not lost. Late in the film, a psychologist recounts to Folman the story of a war photographer who was able to mentally endure the horrible violence unfolding around him by simply viewing his surroundings as if looking through a camera lens. One day, upon witnessing the needless suffering of animals, his "camera" is inexplicably snatched away, leaving him completely vulnerable to the awful images he was previously capable of overlooking. After that incident, the photographer was incapable of doing his job. In the final moments of Waltz With Bashir, Folman essentially snatches away our collective "camera," forcing us to see the Sabra and Shatila massacre through his own eyes. It's a creative decision that will no doubt leave many viewers paralyzed with terror, yet also feels perfectly logical within the context, making Waltz With Bashir essential viewing for anyone foolish enough to believe that the rules of engagement hold any weight at all once the bombs start dropping. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide