User Reviews

I saw this film at the AFI Film Festival a couple of months ago and it stayed with me since then. This is not your typical war movie, nor is it your typical animated film. I'd say its kind of a cross between Waking Life and Grave of the Fireflies.

The film takes place in the present. 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. Folman tries to see in their memories something in himself that has been missing, deadened, or dulled. Like Waking Life, there is no "plot." The filmmaker prefers a more interview-based film. 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. The film's themes of human memory and its elasticity are served well by this technique. Rather than a soldier escaping death by hiding in the sea, we get the larger-than-life memory of a soldier escaping death that would look too "real" in a live action reenactment.

Ari Folman first movie was a great promise, but more than a decade passed since then and with only one feature film, and several TV series on the record his career seems to be stagnating at best. Here he comes now with a film that is so sharp, surprising and different - one of the best Israeli films ever in any genre.

Choosing to do an animated feature about the beginning of the first Lebanon war in 1982 and the collective trauma and amnesia caused by this war to its heroes - young soldier torn down from their first world life to be thrown in the violent absurdity of war - and the whole Israeli society is both a daring and natural thing to do. Daring because this film is after all a documentary about the search to the lost memory of the director about his own presence in war, and the journey to recover it by means of interviews with his fellows in arms. The real life persons are recorded while giving the interviews while extremely accurate drawn images play the visual role (one of the persons interviewed is a famous journalist showing up often on TV). As realist as these scenes are, it is hard to imagine how difficult it would have been to bring on screen the fighting scenes, or to play the trauma of the young boys shown into a terrifying and nightmarish reality. So animation was the right and natural choice. Without using special or expensive effects, the dreams and nightmare scenes are both catching and terrifying, reflecting the traumatized souls of the dreamers (one won't forget easily the opening scene).

Yet, the message of the film is far beyond the personal message. 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. The nightmare became reality and its a grim one. Without ever leaving the personal and emotional plans, the political statement about a war with no winners is made loud and clear without the need of being explicit.

Let's get one thing straight from the beginning: Waltz With Bashir is an animated documentary. It may sound like a paradox, but hey, when the film played at the Cannes Film Festival (which it left with rave reviews but zero awards) it was inevitably compared to Persepolis, which is an animated autobiography. The comparison was also caused by both movies having open anti-war messages, but they couldn't be more different in concept and execution. 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. Folman, like many young Israeli men in the '80s, joined the army to fight in Lebanon when he was merely 18 (this was in 1982), thinking he could serve his country in the best way possible. Once the war was over, Folman's new career began, and he is now a successful actor, director and writer (among other things, he worked on the TV show that inspired HBO's In Treatment). However, he still wasn't able to completely get over the war experience, and so he decided to make Waltz With Bashir in order to exorcise his demons, so to speak. In doing so, he delivered one of the strongest, boldest documents about the true nature of conflict.

Folman's introspective journey begins with the lack of memory: apparently, he and many of his fellow soldiers have trouble remembering the exact details of what happened in Lebanon. 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. Engaging in a pursuit of the truth, the director locates several people with first-hand recollections of those events, and all these people (minus two) supply their own voices for their animated counterparts.

The stream of personal anecdotes and, as said earlier, dreams, made it impossible for Folman to show real footage of what he was trying to say. After all, how do you show a live-action dream sequence in a documentary without making it look corny? Hence the winning choice of rendering the whole story through animation, with just one exception (the final scene, the one that justifies the film's existence, consists of real filmed material). 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. It's a unique piece of cinema, unmatched in its seamless mixture of raw power and peculiar visual beauty.

Waltz With Bashir is amongst the finest animation films I've seen. It is a very disturbing comment on war and its consequences both on countries and on people of both sides. 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. Thus the film emerges as a unique combination of the real and the unreal. The hand drawn animation also makes it a delight to watch. The colour gave it the right atmosphere of claustrophobia in open spaces and the background score is fabulous.

It is certainly not, as the Director of NZ Film Festival announced before the screening, a 'feel-good film'. It should appeal to people who have an interest in animation, documentaries, war and current affairs. 10 out of 10.

Animation is not just for children - the French "Persepolis" (about a girl in Iran) made that clear and the Israeli "Waltz With Bashir" (about the invasion of Lebanon) dramatically underlines the point. The Israeli work was written , produced and directed by Ari Folman and is based on his experiences as a soldier and his video of his exploration of the traumatic events some 20 years later. 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 assassination led the Israeli command to authorise the entrance of a force of approximately 150 Phalangist fighters into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, resulting in a massacre of at least 800 civilians. It is this horrific incident that is the emotional heart of the movie and the cause of Folman's mental repression.

I just came back from watching the movie. I found it interesting and unique. The animation in the film is magnificent and enables the director to really "go wild" with his ideas, without having to be "chained" to what reality filming can give him. The main Character, is on a journey, trying to collect as many memories as he can of the time when he was a young soldier, at war. This journey is so well done, touching, interesting. The man, Ari, slowly revels his past, and we follow him, to an amazing trip down memory lane. Memories that were hidden for too long. An amazing movie that makes you think about life, people, and the complexity of war.

This film exists on several levels. It is partly a film about combat trauma, memory and repression, partly about the specifics of Israel's role in the Lebanese civil war, and partly about war in general as experienced by soldiers. It was cleverly constructed, moving back and forth from the middle-aged protagonist and his search for his lost memories via contacting old comrades, and the depiction of the actual events during the time of his and their youth. The film is mostly done in animation and uses animation in a very effective way.

I do not believe it is at all relevant what someone's political opinions are in terms of appreciating this film. The film reveals truth through taking the viewer on a journey to the past through the memories of people who witnessed the worst days of the conflict.

A unique film, a blend of documentary and animation. It definitely shares some aspects with Richard Linklater's Waking Life, but it seems fresh and new. Ari Folman interviews people with whom he served in the Lebanon War in 1983. He himself was a soldier at the time, but he seems to have blocked the entire period from his memory. The film is almost all animated, mostly because it wants to illustrate the events described by his interviewees. He also wants these horrible events which he doesn't remember experiencing to come across as dreams or nightmares. The style of animation is very odd, very simple, and very beautiful. It's an entertaining and mystical film, but it didn't win me over completely. I kept thinking, "Wow, this is beautiful," or "Wow, this looks neat," and then I'd feel guilty for that. The dreamlike quality of the film becomes kind of numbing after a while. Folman switches to live action, real-life footage of the atrocities he doesn't remember witnessing to show that it definitely wasn't a dream, but I felt like it was too little too late.

Waltz with Bashir may not deliver everything you expect after seeing the trailers, but it is powerful. Director Ari Folman presents a personal view of historic events in which he took part as a young soldier, but which he cannot remember due to repression. 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). The way comedy and tragedy are interspersed in the latter parts of the film may also seem inappropriate to some viewers. The film presents a highly personal point of view for a documentary, justified partly by staying true to the factual material, and partly by its author having been there on the scene.

Overall, despite its shortcomings, this film makes a strong statement and is definitely worth seeing for its visuals and score.

When we recall our memories; we recall them in a non-linear and relatively random, disjointed manner – shooting from one time or location to the next, seeking out that sense of a humbling nature as we come to terms with what we did, or saw. Sometimes they are of a pleasant kind as we recall what good deeds we did on a certain day; or that of an unpleasant kind, when we live in regret and experience those short, sharp stabbing sensations when we, often accidentally, recall an occasion we'd much rather forget: something we said to someone; something we might've done when we were too young and didn't know any better, that we look back on now and realise how wrong we were. 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. It looks at a number of different people, of whom all participated and experienced the same overall situation, and their respective recollections and how they feel about both these and the bigger picture of things. Some can miraculously re-call events from the event that brings them all together, that being the 1982 Lebanon War, others cannot recollect anything at all and feel compelled to seek out those that'll help remind them, whereas others seem more haunted by, and talk about, the dreams that were a result of this conflict.

The film is wandering and disjointed, but it is with the greatest of respects that I say that because the artistic license here compliments the subject matter. The film persistently blurs the lines between what would be either a documentary about a real-life event; a series of talking-head interviews; or a number of recollections, some of which would make both exceedingly effective and dramatic scenes all on their own had they not been entirely non-fictional anyway. But they are, and it's a credit to the film for being able to mesh together all this wavering content into an informative, humbling piece from a man that was there and is going through his own epiphany of sorts both on the screen and off it.

The film does indeed cover Ari Folman, the man who interviews; journeys; remembers but also writes and directs his way to success in a piece that is entirely animated, which adds a further layer of the mystical. It is a piece that incorporates a sense of reality clashing with non-reality: dreams and nightmares not obviously linked to an event, but existing because of a true to life event. Ari travels from one location to another, stumbling across former comrades of the Israel Defense Force, with whom he served during the conflict, in a bid to get to the bottom of why he cannot recall his time, in 1982, in said conflict and regiment. His journey is inspired by Boaz, a man he interacts with in the very first scene in a bar, when he tells Ari of a re-occurring dream in which he is running away from a specific number of dogs. The dogs, in some symbolic-inspired manner, might represent repressed memories and one's feelings and fears linked to these repressed memories – a running away from; a refusal to confront through risk of being attacked and consumed by these memories and feelings, all the while linked to extreme feelings of guilt.

The film acts as an anti-thesis to action films. It takes war and warfare as an item or generic convention; takes a step back, and observes it from a humbling and knowing perspective; it takes time to deconstruct those involved on the front-line of a war-zone; those whom were in and around gun fire and explosions, and informs us of how they feel years on from such a concoction of events and troubling interactions. The first recollection of the conflict the film provides us, and Ari, with; is a tale of how one ex-soldier was facing overwhelming odds on a beach during and was forced into the sea, thus to swim away from any potential battling. While structured with your, some might say 'typical' action conventions with its point of view angles and hand-held camera, the whole sequence refuses to epitomise the typical action hero; instead opting for an atypical generic instance in which the character will run away, or indeed retreat, further distancing the film, very early on, from action genre convention.

Waltz With Bashir is a film-maker attempting to share thoughts, feelings and questions. One might say its 'proper' use of animation technology and mass-European based funding should act as a lesson to 2006 French film Renaissance, whose dazzling imagery was lost under a somewhat empty and soulless exercise in narrative and study. Waltz With Bashir is anything but lacking in feeling and clarity; a humbling and enlightening exercise in which the lead quickly establishes the notion of framing and looking through the camera into another world; their world, their memories and their feelings towards it. Don't bore me, talk down to me or lecture me with pseudo text-book-fodder-pieces like Waking Life; don't drown me in meandering narrative with pieces like Renaissance; just do what Waltz With Bashir does: take an idea, an artistic approach and execute it with a very personal aplomb. For a companion piece, check out 2007's Beaufort; another burning, brooding and engaging Isreali film in which the realities of soldiers in conflict are explored.

I think working on this movie for 4 years is long enough. You obviously missed the whole point. The point of the movie is not to point the blame at anyone, it is about showing the reality of war and what the affect it has on Soldiers.

It's not about who won, who was right, or who did what wrong. Its about how people react to it and how it affects the people who are involved in it. Yes it showed only the Israeli side of things, but hey, its because it's on the Soldiers point of view, how they saw it, not how everyone saw it, not how the other soldiers. It shows his point view, and the interviewers points of views. Thats why its like this.

And that is why it makes it so real. It is very well done.

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.

Although I saw it last night I am still unsure of my reaction to "Waltz with Bashir". I'm still digesting the film, attempting to understand more about it, still wondering if I found it remarkable or disappointing, if I thought its moral sensibilities were sound or superficially apologetic. Perhaps the ultimate irony in the film is that its main themes are those of willful ignorance and of amnesia, or willing repression of memories by the Israeli soldiers on whom the film focuses, but, as pointed out by the great film critic Joumane Chahine (who loved the film) in Film Comment: "It's not that Folman minimizes Israel's complicity in the events, the IDF's logistical involvement has long been a matter of record... The film's more individual perspective justifies circumventing the matter. But the film's discreet arrogance is that, in contrast, it confronts head-on the brutality of the Lebanese Christian Phalanges who perpetrated the butchery. And while the Arabs' treatment of their Palestinian 'brethren' has hardly been exemplary, there is something particularly distasteful- somehow akin to watching a German film about Vichy France's treatment of Jews during World War II- about being lectured on this by the Israelis."

I did find this attitude highly ironic. The Israeli soldiers, the men he actually knew, are all, bar none (except for defence minister Ariel Sharon, who unquestionably was responsible at least in part for the proved massacre of anywhere between two to three and half thousand civilians of all ages and genders, and his presence also ties in with the theme of amnesia- after the massacre hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in protest of the IDF's involvement thanks to Sharon's decisions, but many years later they allowed him to become Prime Minister), sweet, good, morally perfect people. Yet the Christians are portrayed almost literally as dogs. Inhuman, brutal, violent, sick, and fetishistic with regard to their leader. The film makes a huge deal about the dead children and older men and women the soldiers saw in the camps, but Ari Folman doesn't even seem to think about the women, children, and seniors killed in air strikes and even ground initiatives by the IDF during the same war. Somehow, only what the Arab Christians did is truly horrifying. A little hypocrisy at play, or is it a matter of even more suppressed memories?

All that said, I still found the film affecting, and its technical merits are unquestionably outstanding. The animation is gorgeous, the music even more special, and the film is a remarkable, rare exploration of how the guilt and pain these men feel to this day haunts them. It's not new subject matter, but the specifics of this film make it unique, that it focuses on the IDF's involvement in one of the most heinous massacres of the late twentieth century, and moreover that it focuses on involvement by young men who wouldn't have even been sure of what exactly was happening. The film's psychoanalytic approach (it is an 'animated documentary', but I suspect much of it was written, although I'm sure those interviewed were definitely quoted truthfully at many points, but what they say is a little too conveniently attached to the film's themes) is not always successful, and sometimes painfully obvious and tired ("You weren't thinking of these camps, but those camps" or "Unwillingly, you had stepped into the shoes of a Nazi"). Still, the imagery and music, as well as the genuine sincerity and honesty of the film (as well as its subjectivity) make it worthwhile viewing. It's extremely well-crafted and for the most part psychologically interesting, that much is for sure. It's also worth noting that the controversial ending worked for this viewer. Not cheap, not exploitative, but only a stark, brutal reminder of just how real it was.

The storytelling style of this film is unique. Instead of a single linear story, it shows many fragmented memories that the viewer must piece together. Visually, these are shown in a very bold animation style. This makes it very hard hitting and personal. However, this is also its downfall as it is difficult to invest in the individual memories when they take too long to connect together.

This is a graphic novel in film form. This is an animated film that doesn't know it's not live-action. Waltz with Bashir may very well be the most important film of 2008. 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. The quest he undergoes will reveal startling truths, harrowing and gritty accounts by Israeli soldiers, and profound revelations.

One story in particular involving a man whose fellow soldiers were wiped out on a beach in Lebanon, and the man subsequently had to swim far out to sea and stay there until it was clear to swim back, particularly moved me. Waltz with Bashir pulls no punches at any time; the war action is just as bloody and graphic as anything you will see in live-action war films, and the film intelligently explores the atrocities committed on both sides, by both Israeli troops and Lebanese Phalangists. The film's soundtrack has the most brilliant combination of Classical, Israeli Rock, and Euro Dance, and the animation style is designed to look like a graphic novel. The film has very profound messages, as Ari begins to question whether finding out the truth and solving the puzzle is something that he truly wants to do. Wouldn't it be better to forget about the horrors of war and pretend it never happened? Luckily for us, Ari does not follow that route, instead confronting his past head-on by creating this brilliant film about his journey to uncover the truth.

The film culminates in Ari's profound revelation that he may have inadvertently contributed to a massacre committed by Christian Phalangists in Lebanon, and symbolizes this revelation with a single use of live-action at the film's climax. This use of live-action is absolutely devastating, and one of the most powerful scenes in film this year. This is an astounding film about war, traumatic memories, and regret that stands as one of the most important films about genocide since Hotel Rwanda and Schindler's List. If you have any means of seeing this film, do it now.

10/10

Although I doubt it gives an "objective" account of events (and you never get the impression it's supposed to) it does a good job of showing the more chaotic side of war. 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.

This movie handles a subject, that is very delicate, I believe that is why it has been made a cartoon.

The story is good. It does depict the brutality of the war, that still wreaks havoc in the middle-east. It might, however, lack some nuance. But it is a documentary after all.

I wasn't thrilled about the animation. The drawings are good, but they are not put together poperly. I felt the transition between the drawings weren't fluid, which made it awkward to watch. The artists are skilled drawers, but I don't think these drawings should have been put together, it felt like a stop-motion.

Personally, i am disappointed. If you like documentaries and want to do research, this can be a good source. If you're looking for a good cartoon, this is not top notch.