Waltz with Bashir: Movie Review (2009)

Written and directed by Ari Folman, 87 minutes, rated R. In Hebrew, German and English, with English subtitles.

Ari Folman’s Academy Award-nominated “Waltz with Bashir” is about the ramifications of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre that took the lives of hundreds of unarmed men, women and children during the Lebanon war.

It uses animation not only as a means to generate the film’s stunning imagery--you’ve never seen a war movie quite like this war movie. More profoundly, it employs the animated form as a method of underscoring the surreal and hallucinatory aspects of war, and all the varied difficulties of coping in the wake of war.

As such, it takes a medium best known for pleasing tots and uses it to inform its story and characters in ways that real life couldn’t.

This isn’t new (Richard Linklater’s “Waking Life” did it, as did others) but the way it’s handled here is something of a contradiction--a beautiful-looking film about an ugly, unthinkable event. If Folman had chosen to tell his story via live action, it goes without saying that the film’s mix of horror and bloodshed would be anything but beautiful, but it is here. And what are we to make of that? In this case, one shouldn’t assume any disrespect on Folman’s part--the dark color palette he chooses to use alone is enough to suggest shame.

Folman based his script on his own experiences as an Israeli soldier in the Lebanon war, and what he has created is a film geared specifically toward adults that carves into the subconscious and explores what doesn’t want to be remembered or revealed. For Folman, it was this: He and his fellow soldiers knowingly allowed Christian Phalangists to enter a Palestinian refugee camp and go on a killing spree.

The movie begins with a jolt of terror. Twenty-six dogs--all ravenous, wild and hungry for blood--are seen rushing through city streets, their fangs bared, their eyes burning orange against gray coats sharp with angles only animation could create. Their target is a man named Boaz, who awakens from this nightmare to question the reasons why he continues to have it.

For counsel, he goes to his friends, including Folman, who now must confront his own lack of memories surrounding the war. Bizarre dreams start to strike and with them, the pull for answers and the need to face the darkness he himself has buried. This is key: Even if he didn’t fire one bullet himself, by standing silent so that massacre could happen, how much blood does he have on his hands?

It’s a question for the ages, and it’s just one of the reasons why “Waltz with Bashir” is so relevant to the here and now.

Grade: A

View the trailer here: