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Waltz with Bashir Movie Review

Waltz with Bashir is a 2008 Israeli animated documentary film directed by Ari Folman. It’s one of the most acclaimed animated documentaries and for many valid reasons.

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“Memory is dynamic, it’s alive. If some details are missing,

memory fills the holes with things that never happened“

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Ari Folman is encountered with brief visions about the 1982 Lebanon War in which he served as an infantry soldier. When he is not able to recollect his experiences, he interviews his fellow veterans. Let’s talk first about the big elephant in the room – the current war and genocide that Israel is committing in Palestine. I am personally against current events in a certain country influencing what you think of the film itself, but I can certainly get why so many viewers today would feel icky watching this movie.

This is one of those films that is all about the PTSD that the soldiers suffer from the actions that they had to commit. In a way it felt similar to all the Vietnam War movies that the US would make over and over again. Thus, there is no denying that the film was impacted by a point of view bias in its narrative and a clear lack of historical context that plagued it throughout.

With that being said, I would still counter that this is a very strong picture that mostly rose above those aforementioned flaws through the sheer conviction of its messaging and visuals. It’s not just a simple tale of soldiers suffering posttraumatic stress disorder, but Folman also very much comments on the nature of memory and how when genocide is committed those involved forget all about it either intentionally or due to trauma.

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This is an anti-war story and a powerful one at that. The various people being interviewed and giving their own take on the story only further complemented its point that memory is hazy and what happens in wars is difficult to fully grasp at first. This is why you need to talk to as many people involved as possible, which is what this film did, but to an extent as the Lebanese perspective is unfortunately absent here.

Waltz with Bashir is problematic in its final sequence that turned into live-action needlessly so, but before that the movie was a full-blown animated doc and one that benefitted from such a great style to it. The character designs worked, the yellowish color hue made its palette quite unique and the polished, stylistic and almost comic-book style made it both authentic and beautiful to observe.

The score is also very effective, featuring some original songs that are quite memorable. It’s a short film that is engaging throughout, featuring powerful interviews that aren’t as emotional as I would have liked them to have been, but are still pretty potent. Ari Folman directed the film with so much conviction and a style to spare, making you wonder why he would never make a worthy movie after this one. The movie is also exceptionally well edited and paced.

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