By Melissa Antoinette Garza
The animated Israeli semi-documentary film WALTZ WITH BASHIR (2008) opens with a pack of angry dogs with yellow eyes running down a street littered with trash. Like their eyes, the sky is bright yellow. It’s not the sun that makes it that color, though. It’s something else as even the clouds themselves are the same shade.
The vicious animals tear down the street frightening everyone they encounter, but the pups are on a mission. They all gather in front of a large building where on the top floor, a man looks out.
We are then transported into a bar where the lead Ari (Ari Folman) is sitting talking to his friend Boaz Rein-Buskila(Mickey Leon). Boaz had been telling the tale of the dogs as it is a reoccurring nightmare that plagues him. Both men served in the Lebanon War and this dream is more of a PTSD night terror than just an ordinary imagined manifestation.
While in war, Rein-Buskila was sent on a mission to kill the guard dogs owned by the Palestinian army. Unable to murder another person, he does what is asked, but each of the 26 dogs stay with him. He remembers the way in which they died and the look on their faces.
I could never serve in any military. I couldn’t kill a person or an animal. I felt bad when I had to get a death trap for a mouse because the safety traps wouldn’t work. War is not for Missy!
When Boaz asks about Ari’s struggles with war, he’s surprised to learn Ari seemingly doesn’t have any. Though only a few hundred yards from the Sabra and Shatila Massacre, he has no recollection of it. It’s as though he has selective amnesia. The men say goodbye and Ari returns home. There he does have a scattered memory of Beirut. He was much younger and it was certainly during the war as he was washing himself off with his fellow soldiers.
He seeks help from his long time friend Ori (Ori Sivan) to understand why he can’t remember. Ori explains “memory is dynamic” and that the mind will only provide the details we can handle. Often even the things we do remember are wrong or missing key details.
Ari decides to go and visit others he served in the military with so that he may piece together whatever his brain is protecting him from. He interviews others and listens to their memories which are told with wonderful animated flashbacks and surreal imagery that speaks to anyone who is enamored with compelling artwork.
In the end, the truth is revealed and Ari finds out what his place in the war was and how guilt prevented him from remembering it.
From beginning to end, the feature is stunning. The animation is breathtaking and the film is one that definitely should be watched more than once. The detail in the artistry is spectacular and unique in the way it is constructed and drawn. Regardless of how hard you try to pay attention to the scenery and the entire picture shown, you’ll undoubtedly miss something and want to re-watch it so that you may wholly appreciate it.
The emotion conveyed within this picture is done in such a brilliant way by utilizing specific intentional colors, phantasmagorical imagery and intensely graphic scenes Multiple methods of animation are used and the combination makes for something unlike anything ever made before or since.
With very few exceptions, I don’t watch war films. They bother me too much. WALTZ WITH BASHIR (2008) a is a most welcome exception to my rule. It’s gut-wrenching and it hurts, but it is far too magnificent a movie not to watch.
In the end, some real footage of the war and devastation is shown. It’s only for a few moments, but those few moments will sit with you and it’s painful. We see a glimpse of what Ari had. It’s in the safety of our own home. We’re far separated from it, yet it still hits so hard. There was no other way to end the production. This brings it home. It provides the necessary dip back into reality to show what Ari has on his shoulders. Those who have not been in his shoes will never fully comprehend the magnitude of the weight he carries, but the pit in our stomach and the tug on our conscience is evidence that we walked away with the exact feeling Ari Folman wanted us to.
I had never heard of this until it was mentioned by someone most special to me. I’m so grateful that it was, as it will most definitely be added to my collection.
Scared Stiff Rating: 9/10
