Vals Im Bashir

Plot synopsis:
In 1982, Ari Folman was a 19-year-old IDF infantry soldier. In 2006, he meets with a friend from that period, who tells him of the nightmares he's having connected to his experiences from the Lebanon War. Folman is surprised to find that he recalls nothing from that period. Later that night he has a vision from the night of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the reality of which he is unable to clearly recall. In his memory, he and his soldier comrades are bathing at night by the seaside in Beirut under the light of flares descending over the city.
Folman rushes off to meet a childhood friend, who advises him to seek out others who were in Beirut at the same time, to understand what happened there and to revive his own memories. Folman converses with friends and other soldiers who served in the war, among others a psychologist, and Israeli TV reporter Ron Ben-Yishai, who covered Beirut at the time. Folman eventually realizes that he "was in the second or third ring" of soldiers surrounding the Palestinian refugee camp where the carnage was perpetrated, and that he was among those soldiers firing flares into the sky to illuminate the refugee camp for the Lebanese Christian Phalange militia perpetrating the massacre inside. He concludes that his amnesia stemmed from his feeling as a teenage soldier that he was as guilty of the massacre as those who actually carried it out. The film ends with animation dissolving into actual footage of the aftermath of the massacre.

Tags: psychological, thought-provoking, flashback, psychedelic, autobiographical, historical, storytelling, sentimental

Review:
They do have one important thing in common, though: they are animated not because it looked good, but because it was the best artistic choice the directors could make.In the case of Ari Folman, the choice was dictated by the unique angle from which he chose to tell the story: subjectivity.
All they have left is dreams, like the haunting nightmare that opens the movie (26 murderous dogs surrounding the apartment of a former soldier, who believes it to be a subconscious punishment for his killing 26 dogs during a mission) or Folman's eerie flashback of himself and his friends emerging from the water after a massacre he can't (or perhaps doesn't want to) remember.
This gives the picture a feel that is both evocative and down-to-earth, a bizarre but powerful combination that has earned Waltz With Bashir comparisons with the similarly merciless Apocalypse Now. Like few other films about war (Folman has openly stated he despises Hollywood's treatment of the Vietnam conflict, not counting Coppola's masterpiece), this strange, captivating opus depicts it without making it look cool: it's ugly, it's reprehensible, it's the stuff nightmares are made of - not for nothing does it still haunt Folman and his friends.Journey of self-discovery, cinema as psychoanalysis, a document about the past, a warning for the future: Waltz With Bashir is all those things and much, much more.
Like any really powerful film, the opening and closing sequences are stunning - but the intervening one and half hours contain so many moving and disturbing images - some simply surreal - that the animation plays in the mind long after the credits have rolled.The title is a reference to Bashir Gemayel, the newly appointed President of Lebanon, who was assassinated on 14 September 1982 following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon on 6 June 1982.
The film's director, Ari Folman, comes to the realization that he cannot remember anything from the time he served in the Israeli army during the 1982 Lebanon War. The bulk of the movie are his interviews with his old army friends where he asks them what they remember from that time.
This is an "idea film," a poetic film, and traditional narrative style takes a back seat.Like Grave of the Fireflies, the animation in Waltz With Bashir shows the horror of war and its effect on individuals in ways that a live action recreation could never replicate.
No doubt this approach has been taken by numerous other film makers; however what sets Waltz With Bashir apart is that it takes a documentary approach and compares Israel's activities in Lebanon with atrocities in the past wars.Other than documenting events, the film also consists of surreal dream sequences and real life incidents.
When dreams (or better said nightmares) dissipate the deep-buried reality gets back - the massacres in the Palestinian camps become real on screen, and this is the only place where Folman uses fragments of filmed material rather than animation.
A full-length documentary, filmed with animation over the recorded speech of actual participants in the 1982 Lebannon War, Waltz with Bashir is beautifully done and get its message across clearly.It's a shame that some of the stronger artistic points in the movie were left undeveloped, such as the imaginary ghost of the soldier's ex-girlfriend following him around (as seen in the trailer).
Waltz with bashir is something that is hard to forget, while the images grab you first it is the wonderful story and direction here that keeps things at a high level.While the flashback scenes are much better then the real time stuff, there is really no flaw to this film for 90 minutes and that is really saying something in today's film world where perfection is low.I wouldn't say this movie is the best of the year by far, but it could be argued and the movie has some of the most wonderful scenes I have seen in any film including a waltz with gunfire that is oh so memorable.Or the iconic image of men in the ocean looking to the sky, the soundtrack is wonderful with music from Bach and you really feel like there was good writers, directors and producers on this whole thing that made it moving, original and something to really spend some time watching..
The animation is unique and excellent, the story is interesting and was told spectacularly, the dialog is absolutely great, fast and well- paced movie, the opening scene is just brilliant, a great history lesson about one of Israel's famous wars, there was a lot of comedy and humor (to my surprise) which was handled and presented fantastically, the drama is also intense and well handled, can be a little harsh at times but there aren't many harsh and hard-to-watch scenes.
The film is based around director Ari Folman's attempts to remember his experiences from the Israel-Lebanon war of the 1980s and his interviews with old friends and others as he sought to find his memories.
What Ari Folman's calls his "animated documentary" follows a film director who's having trouble remembering a massacre that occurred while he was serving in the Israeli army during the Lebanon War in the early '80s.
Eventually he recreates the Sabra and Shatila massacres as seen from his and his comrades' point of view.The look and the content of this film are harsh and the emotional effect is ultimately powerful, though the subject most of the way though is the numbing down of Israeli veterans who have been involved directly or by proxy with the wholesale killing of Arab civilians.
The film reports one soldier calling Ariel Sharon to tell him, and Sharon saying merely thanks for the information, happy new year.This is the climax of the film, the massacre, seen from a safe distance, but with analogies to Nazi murders and the Warsaw ghetto and with a few seconds of live actual video footage of loudly wailing Palestinian women after the massacre going back to witness what has happened and saying over and over to the camera in Arabic (not translated) "Photograph this, bear witness!"This animated film will appeal to some for its originality and specificity to the experiences of a few Israeli soldiers.
Waltz with Bashir is a very personal memoir of the Lebanon War of 1982, with the accounts of writer/director/producer Ari Folman and various real life individuals who fought on Israel's side during their odyssey into the hellish nightmare that would await them in Lebanon.
The film plays out documentary-style, featuring the likenesses and words of Ari Folman himself, and many others who have the most amazing stories to tell about their experiences in this war.
The film begins as a friend of Ari Folman is describing a recurring nightmare he has had for the past 20 years that is connected to a traumatic experience he had in the Lebanon War. This telling jump-starts Ari's own memories, and prompts him to seek out others who he fought with in the war to try and put the pieces of a seemingly unsolvable puzzle together.
This is a combination of excellent direction, excellent score (and sound editing), excellent animation and great story telling (I'd say "writing", but I'm not sure how much was written and how much is from real interviews).The movie tells stories of the Lebanon war from the eyes of different Israeli soldiers.
However, this isn't any ordinary documentary; it is an animated one.With fantastic hand painted journeys that project both despair and beauty, backed up by fantastic music from Max Richter, this incredible story needs no words to be described; the film will describe itself.If you love cinema and want to see an unusual, creative, original, near-masterpiece courtesy from Israel, then please try and catch this.
It was Robin Williams' character, in Mark Romanek's 2002 film One Hour Photo, who stated "Photographs always represent a happy occasion; because nobody takes a photograph of something they don't want to remember." In one sense, it'd be great if the human mind operated like this: picking and choosing the good times; but if this were the case, we would loose everything of what actually makes us who we are as individuals if all the bad could be detoured around.Isreali animated film Waltz with Bashir enjoys incorporating the notion of memory.
Israeli filmmaker,Ari Folman, takes a trip down repressed memory lane with his animated film about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and his unit's role in the massacres at the Sabra and Shatila camps outside Beirut.In short, nine days before President-elect, Bashir Gemayel was to take office, he was assassinated.
Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir (2008), a unique combination of Animation/Documentary/Biography/ Drama/ War is not easy to watch and almost impossible to forget.
Fictional movies depicting real life events are often held back by their documentary style, but this one is a documentary elevated by its strongly fictional style of storytelling that leans on its psychologically fascinating structure, artistic visual qualities and effective, often very beautiful soundtrack.The biggest accomplishment here is the fact that "Waltz with Bashir" isn't only about the historical viewpoints of the Lebanon war and the personal journey presented.
The film follows Folman in his search for his lost memories from the time when he served in the Israeli army during the traumatic Lebanon War of 1982.The first thing that I realised while watching 'Waltz with Bashir' is the fact that the animation was absolutely indispensable and this film could never have been made in any other possible way.
Perhaps the only one that makes sense is that the animation is very basic, Adobe Flash like, other than that, it is something that touches on both factual and emotional level, without being heavy handed.To put it in perspective, it is the story of an Israeli man trying to understand why he forgot what happened during the war in Lebanon and his journey to remembering.
The movie gives an impression that the Israeli soldiers are frustrated, horny, confused, scared and that they never quite know what they're doing - like when a group of soldiers are riding an armored vehicle just holding down the triggers of their automatic weapons, shooting wildly for hours and hours - or the bizarre "dance" that the movie is named for.No witty banter or everyday language at all is exchanged between the soldiers, instead contrast to the hellish events of war is provided by the interviews with the veterans.All in all, the story is well crafted and the movie is an enriching experience.The choice of animation as a medium, however, seems kind of poorly motivated -- I guess it was a choice made to slim down the budget, because the style of the movie strives to look realistic and it's not hard to imagine it being done as a regular film.Although the animators show potential, the movie is riddled with flaws - from simple errors of craftsmanship (heads too big, hands too small, wonky poses, too-smooth movement and so on) to all too obvious time-savers (the smoking in the bar scene at the beginning was downright painful to watch) that all combine to make sure this movie doesn't get the "it looks the way it's supposed to look"-feel, a feel you seem to get so much easier with conventional film.It reminds me of last year's "Persepolis" which had a great story to tell and mostly good animation, but was sadly ruined by poor pacing and a really cheap-sounding soundtrack..
Waltz with Bashir is a 2008 Israeli animated documentary film written and directed by Ari Folman.
As he starts to have a flashback of the event, Ari sets out to speak to his old friends in the army about they war stories and memories so that Ari can recover his.Animation is not the usual format for documentary but Folman makes it work.
Folman is able to use animation to actually show the events these witnesses describe, whether it's the horrors of war, with young men being scared, shooting at random, being shot at and innocent people getting hurt to the more mundane things like soldiers relaxing on the beach and waiting for orders.
Traumatic experiences may cause chunks to be buried deep and repressed into the subconscious, leaving behind gaping holes susceptible to imaginary inputs that we might assume to have happened.Based on the true story of filmmaker Ari Folman, his friend's recurring nightmare of being haunted by exactly 26 hounds, triggered his realization that he cannot remember a thing about his tour of duty as a 19 year old in the 1982 Lebanon war, except for a mysterious bit of memory that has him, and a group of unknowns, emerge from the beach, walking toward some a war-torn city under the illuminated night skies.Waltz with Bashir is a stunning animated documentary, possibly the first docu that I've seen that's being told in animated form.
From talking heads styled interviews, events get constructed in piece meal fashion, which provided the Roshomon Effect in technique even, since perspectives are always biased, and again open to inaccuracies.From the memories of his peers, we see countless of imagery of the war fought, each providing a key eventful piece that suggests Ari himself was present when they took place, from simple ambushes, to what slowly unravelled itself to be the Sabra and Shatila Massacre, controversial for the IDF's inaction to prevent a genocide from happening from under its watch in a refugee camp.The imagery used in the film, especially the fantasy, escapist sequences, allowed for some distraction away from the stark visuals on the horrors of war, and you'd have a stone cold heart should you not be affected by the senselessness of evil that Man is capable of.
Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir movie takes the Animation style into a surrealism form, the real footage at the end represents the real life suffering of the Palestinian people as a whole.
Many critics have lauded the use of somber animation to examine the reaction of director Ari Folman and other Israeli soldiers during the first Lebanon War, focusing in particular on the massacres perpetrated against the Palestinans by the Christian Phalangists at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps following the assassination of the charismatic leader of the Phalangists, Bashir Gemayel.
It's a sign of great things to come, and an effort sure to prove that the medium can be taken seriously and used to greater effect that live-footage may be able to accomplish.Taking a rather surreal documentation approach to his narrative, Folman presents his story through the eyes of himself as he tries to uncover his lost memory involving the Lebanon War twenty years past.
In essence then, what unfolds is virtually an animated documentary of sorts, telling the story of how Folman in real life eventually started to remember his years as a soldier.Although this straight forward approach to indulging in a history lesson involving the Lebanon War provides ample interest, it is when Folman uses the animation present in his film to full effect; travelling back into the his memories of the war itself and presenting first hand accounts.
As a war movie, the film and Folman seem to refuse to take a stance on the general concept of war, instead showing what life was like during such times with little to no bias either way; like the masterpiece Apocalypse Now, Waltz with Bashir isn't interested in the politics involved, but more with the humanity that makes war breathe, shoot and cower in fear.
Animation in cinema has come a long way since American film "Who framed Roger Rabbit" was directed by Robert Zemeckis in 1988.A lot of things have changed both in real as well as reel life.This is something all directors have taken into consideration while making their films.In his first animation film Israeli director Ari Folman has chosen to keep a neutral stance.Although his film "Vals Im Bachir" talks about brutal, senseless killing of people during Israel's military intervention in Lebenon,judging by characters' facial expressions,one can surely feel that there is hardly any feeling of remorse.This has happened as everything is told in a plain,matter of fact style.One of the reasons why people have liked this film is that animation cinema reduces the trauma in a viewer's mind about a massacre.For a director,it is also economically viable to shoot a film with war scenes on animation format as traditional 35 mm cinema mode would cost a lot of money.Waltz with Bashir jolts and shocks viewers as something like this has not been made in recent times.The success of this film has paved the way for more serious topics being covered using animation in near future..
Ari Folman's takes us through an amazing experience via this Israelite animated documentary which traces the events during the 1982 Lebanon War, told from the perspective of the directors' own experiences as a soldier during the massacres.The script is cleverly written with an intriguing opening involving a haunting nightmare with 26 vicious dogs, which not only aroused the protagonist of the film to rediscover his vanished memories of the war, but also intrigued the audiences to explore/reminisce the horrific events.
Ari Folman, an Israeli Film Director, presents an animated Documentary recounting his own life in Lebanon (1982).
Ari Folman, an Israeli Film Director, presents an animated Documentary recounting his own life in Lebanon (1982).
"Waltz With Bashir" is a film about the 1982 Lebanon war from the point of view of the Israeli soldiers who fought there.
Ari Folman's animated documentary about the role he played in an Israeli massacre of Palestinians during the Lebanese war of the early 1980s.Folman has no recollection of the event, so he embarks on a journey to find other people who he knows were there and who might be able to help him reconstruct his memories.
Israeli director Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir is easily the standout film of 2008, with its surreal animation style and abrupt way of portraying such a horrific event.