Waltz with Bashir
Director: Ari Folman
Like Waking Life, but set in a war zone, Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir combines the eye-grabbing potential of exquisitely crafted animation and rotoscoping (see Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly) with the soul-grabbing potential of the documentary. Captivating images of dream and memory are interspersed with rotoscoped conversation and interviews as the director's on-screen avatar searches for the truth behind his participation in a brutal massacre during the first Lebanon war. Since he has no recollection of the event, Folman seeks out other ex-soldiers who might help him recover not only his memory of the horrific event, but a sense of what it truly means to be culpable in something that, at the time, you may not know is even occurring.
From the outset of the film, where a pack of ravenous dogs tear violently through the streets of a modern day Israeli city, you know this will be the kind of film to haunt you for days—like a dream that was so close to becoming a vicious, brutal nightmare. It is truly the imagery that haunts: namely, a young soldier waltzing across a city street to avoid gunfire from the blasted-out buildings above, silent soldiers bathing in the sea which is itself bathed in a golden light from slowly descending flares, and the final arresting image that brings a perfect, yet wholly unexpected finale to a film rich in emotive power and startling imagery. Check out the website and trailers at www.waltzwithbashir.com. |
