Waltz With Bashir - A Detailed Review
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Ari Folman meets a former soldier in a bar who wants to talk to him about a disturbing dream, where 26 dogs rampage through a town baying for his blood. The dream, he says, is connected to when he had the task of killing dogs before the barking alerted the residents to Israeli soldiers in their town during the 1982 Lebanon war.
This leads Folman to reminisce about his own recurring haunting dream, when he arises, naked from the sea, towards the large shimmering orange lights of war torn Lebanon, with nothing but a rifle in his hand. Thanks to this revelation, Folman goes on a journey to uncover the repressed memories of his times as a soldier in the conflict twenty years before, meeting former comrades who fought alongside him what his haunting dream represents to him. He has no memory of battle, only vivid memories of when he was on leave, most notably the girl who dumped him before he went away to battle.
‘Waltz With Bashir’ is beautiful, haunting, empathic and animated, giving the director Folman creative freedom when re-counting the memories of other soldiers much stronger than what a docudrama could, each scene is rich in detail, colour, mood and depth and accurately depicts what war is like, a horrific hypnotic recollection of mentally wounded soldiers whose memories tap right into the psyche.
The storytelling is what makes the documentary unique. The interviewee’s voices are rich and full of emotion, while their animated selves are softly drawn without over elaborate details, the emotion shines in their cartoon eyes; it’s what tells them apart as individuals. From the soldier being shot in the neck whilst travelling in the tank, to the story of the young boy with the RPG missile launcher and the famous scene of the soldier firing his gun as he waltzes in front of a massive poster of the murdered leader Bashir, their voices encapsulate a rich sense of humanity and banality. They don’t gloss over any details, they tell it like they saw it, even adding dark humour to recollect their hard times as young men, scared to death and relying on each other to survive. They are also very honest with themselves, there are no delusions of glory, and there are no heroes in their war.
The documentary runs seamlessly as a collection of chapters, each chapter being a memory bringing Folman to his ultimate goal as to what has horrified him so much he had to push it so deep into his sub conscience. The viewer becomes a voyeur, put right into the heart of the action, witnessing the violence and surrealism of war. What makes it stand out from other war documentaries is the vivid touches of the little things that happen in battle, such as the soldier washing the blood from the jeep when they recover the dead and wounded, two soldiers arguing over a packet of crisps, the accurate sounds of the cackling of the automatic weapons and the whizzing of the bullets past their ears, the music that they listened to…only a former soldier could recreate war in all of its hellish former glory. The animation causes you to travel along in a safe bubble, not being affected badly by the scenes of violence, the brutal massacres of innocents and the strangest incidents that happen in battle, such as the soldier being left behind by a helicopter only to be shot dead by a rebel.
Not only is Folman a talented film maker, he is also humble and scarred; the animation is his weapon to really show the public the images in his head, rather than a glossy film where the film maker relies heavily on archive footage to send a less powerful message.
The realisation of Folman’s recurring dream or the hallucination as his therapist puts it shocks you to the very core of your being. He realises that his emergence from the sea is his blanket of protection and his walk towards the city naked while carrying his rifle, is his vulnerability towards knowing the truth. After recollecting most of his memories he sets out to find the last missing memory, which is to recover his whereabouts when innocent Palestinians were massacred in Sabra and Shatila he remembers lighting flairs for the soldiers to find their way towards the innocents, which makes him feel like a Nazi. However the horror is unfolded when he remembers the wailing women flocking towards him…cut to a long zoom into his sad face, the horror in his eyes…cut to real footage of dead women and children. The viewer is torn from the surreal world of animation to looking into the faces of actual dead children, just like Folman’s memory is torn from his sub conscience. We feel what he feels. The surrealism floats away and reality crashes in. you are left deeply saddened by the events that occurred.
The power of animation has come along way since its roots in children’s programming. As you become an adult, it matures with you, the themes of your viewing in animation incorporates adult themes. ‘Waltz With Bashir’ powerfully transcends the viewer into a world that you are familiar with, only to rip it from you to reveal the truth of what the world is really like. It leaves you inadequately human. ‘Waltz With Bashir’ is a masterpiece.
