WALTZ WITH BASHIR

Release date: 21 November
Cert: TBC
Running Time: 90 mins

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylzO9vbEpPg

After an opening dream sequence, Waltz with Bashir begins with Ari Folman having a conversation with Boaz Rein Buskila. Both were soldiers in the Israeli army and Boaz is describing a recurring nightmare he has had since the 1982 war with Lebanon. Ari says that he has very few memories from the war he participated in but that night has a dream that brings him back to the day of the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.
    This leads Ari to ask a Ori Sivan, his personal shrink, why he has no recollection of the war and why he has had this nocturnal flashback. Ori explains that sometimes the mind blocks out traumatic events to protect us from them. He encourages Ari to seek out Carmi Cna'an, who is in the dream, for more details on what had happened.
    Ari visits Carmi and the two exchange memories. During their conversation Ari asks Camri if he can him draw his host playing ball with his son. Camri says it is fine for Ari to draw them, as long as he doesn’t to film them. This is signifigant because Ari Folman is real person, as are all of the characters in the film. Ari is an award winning documentary film maker and in Waltz with Bashir he is retracing his lost memories through the medium of animation.
    The movie continues with four more conversations. Each conversation is offset with flashbacks to the war. The animated nature of the picture allows Folman to give a detailed visual representation of the memories of Ari and his intrviewees, much more so than if he had just filmed the interviews like a normal documentary. Waltz with Bashir also has more realism than a typical animated feature also due to its source material. Folman calls it an “animated documentary”.
    Yoni Goodman was charged with bringing Ari’s vision to the big screen. Yoni is animator and Illustrator  and it took four years of incredible dedication to bring the conversations, the memories, and the visions to life. It has a comic book/pop art look and moves like a  japanese anime.
    There is no noise during the conversations other than the voices of those telling the stories. Only when the visuals shift to a flashback does the soundtrack kick in. This helps to amplify the realism of the conversations.
    The movie shows both the high and low points of military life. The soldiers aren’t partying on a beach, they are being shot at. If they aren’t watching porn, they are dumping dead bodies. This is the picture painted by Folman and Goodman.
    The only critism to be levelled at the makers is that the film is subtitled. I have no problem with subtitles usually but this is an animated film and could have easily been dubbed. You get distracted from the drawings by the words at thebottom of the screen.
    Ignoring that little niggle this is a great film with an ending that will hit you like an articulated truck full of bricks. Check it out.