
Hide the kids, this animated flick is for adults.
By Curt Holman
Waltz With Bashir, Ari Folman's surreal remembrance of Israel's 1982 war with Lebanon, ends on the most wrenching note imaginable, yet leaving the theater offers no relief to the audience. The real world only amplifies the movie's disheartening themes.
Folman, a filmmaker and Lebanon War veteran, uses splashy animation for his fascinating nonfiction account of the damage war inflicts on innocent civilians and victorious soldiers alike. Viewers steep in the horrors of the Lebanon War and the psychological trauma of its aftermath. But after the closing credits, current events come rushing in and we recall the fresh wounds of Israel's recent conflict with Gaza.
In Waltz, Folman presents himself not so much tormented by wartime memories as haunted by their absence. During the first scene, Folman talks to his old friend and fellow soldier Boaz, who recounts a dream of vicious dogs racing through an Israeli neighborhood. Boaz's dream derives from his recollections of shooting dogs during the war, and causes Folman to realize that he can recall almost nothing of the experience.
With one exception. He remembers swimming in the ocean at night and getting dressed while flares illuminate Beirut in a sinister yellow glow. He's not sure what it means or if it actually even happened, but he associates it with the '82 Sabra and Shatila massacres, when Israeli forces allegedly looked the other way as members of a Lebanese Christian militia killed hundreds of Palestinians at two refugee camps. Troubled by the gaps in his memory, Folman consults a therapist friend and tracks down soldiers from his unit and other veterans to see if they can help reconnect him with his past.
Waltz uses animation to emphasize that we shouldn't rely on what we see in our mind's eye. The simplified details and vivid color scheme give Waltz the quality of underground comics from the '60s set to motion. Occasionally, a morbid sense of humor seeps through. At one point, Israeli forces try to stop a terrorist sniper car, but their gunners, tanks and planes hit everything but their target. In dreams and eyewitness accounts, water provides a recurring image of escape, serenity and even an outlandish moment of sensuality, yet also serves as a symbol of fear. Waltz uses brash, '80s-style pop music to capture the troops' youth and bravado.
Had Folman directed a docudrama of Waltz complete with scrupulously re-created battle scenes, it would've had a completely different impact. Powerful cinematic battle scenes do their best to approximate the nightmarishness of war for a mass audience.
Waltz's animation not only illuminates the psychological trauma of war, but hints at its long-term effects. If the veterans cannot or will not remember what happened, it seems all the more likely that raw recruits of later decades will end up in combat zones.
Waltz with Bashir
Written and directed by Ari Folman
With Ron Ben-Yishai, Ronny Dayag and Ari Folman
UA DeVargas
90 min., R