DVD Review: Waltz With Bashir

A Look at the DVD Release of Ari Folman's Award-Winning Film

Jun 21, 2009

So few films manage to, as Orson Welles once put it, show audiences what they never thought was possible. But with Waltz With Bashir, Ari Folman does just that.

Folman's animated pseudo-documentary has a look and feel unlike any other movie we've ever seen before. The styllized blend of hand-drawn (via computers) and flash animation allows for an impressionistic account of Israel's 1982 Lebanon war -- and the ensuing massacre at Sabra and Shatila -- that teeters between harrowing emotional realism and hallucinatory visual surrealism.

Waltz With Bashir is, among many things, an exploration of war and the nature of personal (and symbolically) collective memory. After an encounter with an old army buddy, Folman -- the writer/director/main character -- starts having a recurring dream from the war. It's unclear whether the eerie vision of naked soldiers rising from the sea on the day of the massacre is a concrete memory, constructed nightmare or a little bit of both. As it stands, though, it is all Folman can recall of the war.

There is never a full explanation of the mysterious scene repeated throughout the film, but as Folman speaks with other friends, fellow soldiers, doctors and an Israeli journalist, his surpressed memories come flooding back. The interviews are all real (only two characters had to be re-recorded with actors in place of the actual people) and each account builds layer upon layer, mounting toward Folman's dreadful encounter at the massacre.

War Through The Kaleidoscope of Memory

"Memory is dynamic," one doctor/friend tells Folman. "It's alive." As is the film and Folman's imagination. With the aid of a spectacular art and animation department, Folman paints the psychological landscape of war in brilliant colors. The animation is interpretive rather than literal, allowing for a simulacrum where brutality and beauty struggle to eclipse one another. There is a method to the madness -- war has no logic to Folman, and so he sees little reason for adhering to realism within the film.

Orange skies light up with flares, superimposed memories of Lebanon flood the cab window on a drive through Holland and, eventually, the colors burn in foreboding shades of amber as the massacre becomes more of a reality. In the finale, the filmmaking mechanism breaks down in favor of actual footage -- perhaps a slight nod to Gilbert Tofano's 1969 film Matzor ("Siege") , which focuses on the War of Attrition in Israel. In both cases, the trauma of war escapes the language of film, and so the artifice must fail.

Waltzing With The Enemy

The title references Christian Phalangist leader Bashir Gemayel, whose death prompted his Phalangist followers to massacre the Palestinian refugees at Sabra and Shatila. Literally, the "waltz" comes from a scene in which one of Folman's comrades -- Shmuel Frenkel -- dances while volleying fire in a skirmish in front of Bashir's poster visage. But it's an apt metaphor. Israel chose a strange bedfellow, and although Folman does not directly blame his countrymen (or himself) for the massacre, he sees blood on his hands.

At the time of the film's release in Israel, Gideon Levy of Haaeretz (Israel's oldest daily) labeled the film "propaganda", which is a gross-misunderstanding of the film. Folman places blame on both the Israel Defense Force and the Phalangist soldiers, but his goal isn't to ferret out the party most responsible or vindicate who has been wrongly accused. He is interested in the healing process, not finger pointing.

Waltz With Bashir is an indictment of war as an awful institution, a broken mindset. There isn't a hint of self-righteousness or nationalist glory, no soapbox to shout from. Just a humble plea, as John Lennon once sung, to "stop the killing now".

Special Features

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment does a nice, compact job on delivering a satisfactory amount of extra content for a single-disc set. In addition to Folman's DVD commentary, there are several featurettes that, while brief, give enough information to satisfy your basic curiosities on the animation process.

"Surreal Soldiers: Making Waltz With Bashir" combines the rhetorical/philosophical concerns (what is more real: live action footage or animation?) with the more practical. A separate "Building The Scenes" feature breaks down the studio filming, animatics and final animation process for several key scenes, but if that sounds like a bit much, then "Surreal Soldiers" offers a quicker, more basic overview of the process.

Regardless, it's illuminating to see the artistry behind the striking imagery. Animating Waltz With Bashir was a painstaking process and the animation department makes special mention: The film contains no rotoscoping whatsoever.

Q&A with Ari Folman reveals the director/writer as quite the enigmatic personality, as intellectual as he is humorous. The interview -- culled from his appearance at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, where Waltz With Bashir played in competition -- doesn't really have anything terribly substantial, but is worth a peek if only to get a slightly better idea of Folman's stance outside the film.

FILM RATING: 4.5 out of 5 stars

VERDICT: One way or another, seeing what could be 2008's best film is essential.

The copyright of the article DVD Review: Waltz With Bashir in Drama DVD Reviews is owned by Zachary Herrmann. Permission to republish DVD Review: Waltz With Bashir in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.