Grade: A (***** out of *****)
World-premiering at the 2008 Cannes Film Fest in May, “Waltz With Bashir” has been recently nominated for a Golden Globe (in the foreign-language film category) and is Israel’s official entry for the Foreign-Language Oscar (nominations will be announced Jan 22).
The film’s title of comes from a scene in which the unit is under heavy fire and Frenkel forcefully takes another soldier’s MAG, goes into the open, and fires wildly, in “some sort of trance” as he “waltzes” between enemy bullets with portraits of Bashir Gemayel on posters in the background.
One night at a bar, Boaz, an old friend, tells director Folman about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs, which constitutes the first, utterly striking and shocking segment in the picture. Every night, there are the same number of beasts. The two men conclude that there’s a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early 1980s, but Ari is surprised that he can’t remember a thing anymore about that presumably significant period of his life.
Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. And from that point on, “Waltz With Bashir” becomes sort of a road movie. Folman needs to discover the truth about that painful time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in images that are truly surreal. One of the film’s forceful visual motifs depicts a bunch of soldiers emerging naked out of the waters of Lebanon in the middle of the night.
The film centers on the role of the Israeli army in the massacres conducted by the Christian Phalangists of Palestinian civilian (woman and children included) n the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps; former prime minister Ariel Sharon was condemned for his actions.
The crediting sequence is nothing short of brilliant, featuring a pack of vicious hounds chasing a man, which turns out to be the recurrent anxiety of Boaz, Ari Folman’s friend, who kicks off the narrative. Decades later, Boaz is still haunted by his cold-blooded shooting of the 26 dogs so that he can execute his mission in silence. Favoring anonymity, Boaz, by the way, is the only soldier who’s voiced by a professional actor (Miki Leon).
The narrative is loose enough to allow for digressive commentaries and voice-overs about the soldiers ‘lives outside of the military, including their family backgrounds, love affairs, friendships, politics, and worldviews. In the end, you get a rough portrait of what it meant to be a young man in Israel of the early 1980s.
In its powerful imagery and vital intelligence it’s incomparable to any other animation or docu. Yet in broader terms, “Waltz With Bashir” may belong to a cycle of films, prime among which is Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” which depict war as madness and hell and combat as an experience that could only be captured in surreal terms. Witness the climax of this docu, in which a solider goes on an irrational killing spree, in which, trapped in an empty, desolate street, he shoots indiscriminately everything in sight.
The film bears slight resemblance to the Iranian animated docu “Persepolis,” in which director Marjane Satrapi also used animation to explore in personal ways chapters of her society’s turbulent history.
Ari Folman
I assume his work is unfamiliar to most viewers outside Israel. In the mid-1980s, after completing his military service, Ari Folman ventured out on his dream trip to circle the world with a backpack. Just two weeks and two countries into the trip, he realized traveling was not for him, so he settled into small guesthouses in Southeast Asia and wrote letters to his friends at home, letters in which he fabricated the perfect trip. After one year of being in one place and expressing his fantastical imagination, he return homed to study cinema.
Folman’s graduate film, “Comfortably Numb” (1991) documented Ari’s close friends taking cover on the verge of anxiety attacks during the first Gulf war while Iraqi missiles landed all over Tel Aviv. The result was comical and absurd and the film won the Israeli Academy award for Best Documentary. Between 1991-1996 Ari directed documentary specials for TV, mainly in the occupied territories. In 1996 he wrote and directed ASaint Clara@, a feature based on a novel by Czech author Pavel Kohout. The film won seven Israeli Academy awards, including Best Director and Best Film. “Saint Clara” opened the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama and won the People’s Choice Award.
His second feature, “Made in Israel,” in 2001, is a futuristic fantasy that centers upon the pursuit of the world’s only remaining Nazi. Ari has written for several successful Israeli TV series, including the award-winning “In Therapy,” which became the basis for the new HBO series “In Treatment.”
Cast
Being an animated film, all appearances are voices. Unless otherwise noted, the character is voiced by the real person being portrayed. For all but two, the animated characters were designed to appear similar to the real-life persons they portray.
Ari Folman, Israeli filmmaker, recently finished military reserve service. Some 20 years before, he served in IDF during the Lebanon War.
Boaz Rein-Buskila (voiced by Miki Leon, accountant and Israeli Lebanon War vet suffering from nightmares.
Ori Sivan, Israeli filmmaker, co-directed with Folman, long-time friend.
Carmi Can’an (voiced by Yehezkel Lazarov), Israeli Lebanon War vet, once Folman’s friend, now lives in Netherlands. Carmi chose to be combat soldier to prove his masculinity, but testifies that after the war “he could be nobody.”
Ronny Dayag, Israeli Lebanon War vet, high food engineer. During the war, he was a Merkava tank crewman. Dayag testifies that, as only survivor of ambush, he suffers from guilt.
Shmuel Frenkel, Israeli Lebanon War vet, was in Folman’s infantry, he had repressed the fact that his company was confronted by and killed boy who had an RPG.
Zahava Solomon, Israeli psychologist and researcher in trauma. Zahava provides analysis for some events in the movie, using clinical terms. She explains that Folman’s confrontation with the boy with the RPG was forgotten because his brain used a defence mechanism called dissociation.
Ron Ben-Yishai, Israeli journalist who first covered Sabra and Shatila massacre.
Dror Harazi, Israeli Lebanon War vet, he commanded a tank that was stationed outside the Shatila refugee camp.
