Waltz with Bashir

(Germany, Israel, 2008, 87 mins)

35mm

Selected Filmography:  

PRODS: Ari Folman, Yael Nahlieli, Serge Lalou, Gerhard Meixner, Roman Paul
SCR: Ari Folman
ANIM DIR: Yoni Goodman
ED: Nili Feller
MUS: Max Richter

Ari Folman was a young soldier during the first Lebanon war, but where his memories should be there is only a void. When a friend recalls a deeply disturbing dream in which he was chased by a pack of 26 vicious dogs, Folman sets out to unearth the darkness of his own mind, interviewing nine fellow soldiers, whose own fractured and broken recollections, pieced together, begin to form a terrible picture. As the director's suppressed memories worm their way to the surface in the form of dreams and surreal visions, the truth becomes indelibly apparent in this affecting animated documentary.

Folman's film shares some commonalties with Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (VIFF 07), but Waltz with Bashir breaks new ground by engaging with extremely difficult content. (The film's title refers to a mad dance performed by a young army officer between posters of the recently assassinated President-elect of Lebanon Bashir Gemayel.) The precision of the drawn image pares away nonessentials, creating a distillation of pure emotion. The results are nothing less than riveting.

"Folman's eerie animated images have a way of jarring us out of our comfort zone. A traumatized boy soldier is reflected in the eye of a dying horse; naked, numb recruits wade out of a sea dyed gold by illumination flares; a child's hand and tousled head is partially obscured by the rubble of her family home. The emotional dislocation and the unreal quality of war is written in every frame."--The Times

Sponsored By:

Jews for a Just Peace

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