Waltz with Bashir Review
Waltz with Bashir is like no other documentary I can think of. For that reason, this is exciting and refreshing to experience something as new as this. At the same time, the subject matter rarely lets you go, forcing you to uncover the memories along side Ari Folman, the film’s subject. By the end of the film, if the brilliant animation or the realization of the fact that this film is a mind-blowing experience, doesn’t affect you, most certainly the film’s final scenes will leave you gasping for air.
What’s it about, you say? The film follows Ari Folman as he tries to find the memories he lost of his service in the military. After he meets a friend who served with him, he realizes that the friend too, can’t recall those memories. So from here, we follow him as he meets up with old service buddies, all trying to recall the military service. Folman uses a variety of animation styles to recollect, all in the service of the film. Animation and documentary aren’t a combination you’d think of working, let alone seeing, but with Waltz with Bashir, it does.
Folman can use dreams and nightmares that he or his comrades have, and explore them thoroughly. This is something live action would be unable to capture. The film opens with a blitz of dogs running and terrorizing everything in their path. The head towards his window, with him looking out, eyes locking, mouth foaming. Later, it’s reveal why these dogs haunt him. I think such a visual interpretation of guilt, has much more impact with this film’s visual style, instead of a “talking head” documentary. This is just one of many examples of how the style executes their memories to a dizzying effect.
What these men are trying to remember is the 1982 Lebanon War, and more specifically the Sabra and Shatila Massacre. This isn’t a spoiler. Outside of the animation, the thing that works for this documentary (if you want to call it that), is the way we learn about things as they are being remembered. Documentaries usually have their facts all ready and give it to us with interviews and archival footage. Waltz with Bashir starts out just like us. We don’t know much of the conflict or the massacre, but as they remember, so learn of the horrifying incident that changed their lives forever. The after effects of this massacre, extend far into our own lives as Osama Bin Laden claimed the footage he seen from this massacre, inspired him to attack America’s embassies. The film closes out, as the men look on; the film goes from animation to real life archival footage of the massacre, and then ends. You will not forget these powerful, disturbing, sad images. A brilliant way to end a film really, we are not forewarned to what we see, that helps blindsides us. Folman’s message is quite clear after you leave the theater.
Rating: 
