Friday
23Jan2009
Movie Review - 'Waltz With Bashir'
Friday, January 23, 2009 at 12:30AM | Waltz With Bashir
Featuring the voices of Ari Folman Ori Sivan, and Roni Dayag  |
What is film? At its most basic, I mean. It's visual storytelling, and those two things don't always have to be part of a great marriage. There are good films that aren't that all that interesting visually, just as there are stunning technical achievements that dwarf their stories. Waltz With Bashir is one of the very rare films of the past few years that has both achieved something new with its visual style and with its storytelling techniques. For American audiences, it is even more revealing than it would be in its home nation of Israel because of what the story is about.
You don't have to follow the news too closely to be aware of the continuing bloodshed in the Middle East between Israel and its neighbors - Religion in action! And if you're of a certain age you'll probably remember how deeply this violence intensified in the 1980s. But, like so many things that happen halfway around the world, we tend to lose sight of it in this country after some time has passed.
Director Ari Folman was a soldier in the Israeli army in 1982, at the time of the Sabra and Shatila Massacre, in which up to 3,500 Palestinians in Lebanon were slaughtered in three days. The attacks were in response to the assassination of the 35-year-old Lebanese President-elect, Bachir Gemayel (or Bashir, if you prefer), who had weeks earlier begun diplomatic negotiations with Israel.
At the beginning of his film, Folman is listening to a friend recount a dream that has haunted him from that time period, after which Folman reveals that he has never thought of the Lebanon War. Not once.
But the floodgates open and Ari begins to wonder why he can't connect all the pieces. There's something from his memory missing, and in its place, a kind of dreamlike vision of himself swimming in the sea with his friends, hundreds of yards from the violence. Folman tracks down the friends he served with and those by his side in 1982 with whom he hasn't remained close, just trying to put it all together. Was he near the massacre, in the massacre, or somewhere else entirely - he just doesn't remember. He also can't recall why he didn't try to stop the massacre or why nobody else did, for that matter.
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