No Dance Card Needed

Animated Documentary shows us what Nightmares are made of
by Morgan P Salvo

 Now that all the Oscar hub-bub has subsided, Waltz with Bashir, the Academy Award nominated flick from Israel, finally comes to Bend. Bashir is an animated documentary containing real life interviews, depicted in cartoon form, dissecting the first war in Lebanon during the 80’s in the wake of Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel’s assassination. One would assume that taking an animated approach to atrocities of war would risk trivializing the tragedies, but for the most part writer/director Ari Folman pulls it off. The opening scene with wild dogs all fire-eyed and snarling running through the streets in a dream sequence recounted by Folman’s pal is an effective set up for things to come. The dream jars the director’s vague recollection about his possible involvement in a massacre/slaughter/battle/conflict. He decides to goes on a mission to regain his memory.
The Israeli filmmaker’s fourth feature spotlights a drawn version of himself. Investigating his past Folman conducts interviews that meld flashbacks, hallucinatory dreams, the surreal, personal and political anecdotes with weird newsreel-like footage. The actual voices of interviewees narrate the animated reenactments. We then delve into the atrocities via characters that come and go, as well as discussions with psychiatrists, soldiers, and friends all assisting the director’s quest. The focus is on clearing the foggy remembrance of what transpired during the 1982 massacres at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon where Folman served as a soldier during Israel’s invasion of Beirut and, more specifically, the massacres of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila camps by the Christian Phalangist Militia.
The film’s strange animation is not of the Richard Linklater’s Waking Life/Scanner Darkly ilk but is rather closer to Christian Volckman’s Renaissance and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. Aesthetically Bashir is more of German Expressionism meets the old Speed Racer type of animation. The process used a combination of Flash animation, traditional hand-drawn technique, and computer-enhanced 3-D, with select computerized images serving as background enhancement. I must admit that I grew tired of the interviewees being in animation form. It seems like it would have been more compelling and less disingenuous to have kept the interviews as real footage, adding a nice transition to the interlocking tales.
One quick scene reveals where the animated documentary’s concept materialized: The director asks during an interview if he can sketch his old pal and is told, “It’s fine, draw all you want as long as you don’t film.”

The choice of music is phenomenal from PIL’s “This is Not a Love Song” and OMD’s “Enola Gay” to strange folk ballads like “Good Morning Lebanon” by Max Richter and “Incubator” by Clique. The one comical moment was when a soldier was fixatedly watching porn (zeroing in on the adventures of an Israeli plumber) while relating his tragic tale. Some of the more harrowing moments will come back to haunt you. A Lebanese family ends up bullet riddled only because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and the scene that gives the film its title: a soldier who is somehow impervious to bullets waltzes with his machine gun blazing in front of a huge wall poster of Bashir.
Waltz is a very disturbing comment on war and its consequences, for the countries and the people of both sides. The surreal touches, tension filled war scenes and dream sequences are arranged with simplistic restraint letting the unsettling information sink in. This film has a definite emphasis on the personal viewpoint, focusing on what individual soldiers experienced and the lasting results of how those images and memories affected them. The horrific reality of war, and how the ensuing fear, and later guilt can distort and even relinquish all perception and memory is the film’s strongest message. After some unnecessary plodding, Waltz with Bashir culminates in real footage of the much talked about innocent people’s deaths, leaving us with a sobering, empty space and plenty of time to think.

Waltz With Bashir
Written and directed by Ari Folman
2 1/2 stars