Waltz With Bashir

Based on the few Israeli war films I've seen (and I think this makes number three), they all are so meditative and trancelike. I'm not quite sure what that means exactly but it is what it is.

I really liked this film a lot. I saw it a couple of months ago and it has really stuck with me. There are brilliant images in this that beautifully illuminate some of the more surreal aspects of war. Some of the moments in this film, I will never forget.

The film is about the 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees by a Christian militia in Lebanon. The director of the film, Ari Folman, was an Israeli soldier who was there but years later had no recollection of the events. So he traveled around the world to interview other soldiers to help him remember what his role in the massacre might have been.

What he found, he decided to recreate in animated form. In fact, the entire thing (except for the harrowing last few seconds) including the interviews are animated. It was a great choice. A standard doc would undoubtedly have been good but it wouldn't have been the art that is this film.

Directed by Ari Folman
2008
Sunshine Cinemas