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Waltz with Bashir: A Groundbreaking Animated Documentary
Ariel Folman’s singular, innovative, influential masterpiece is more relevant than ever
Brad Bird, director of The Iron Giant and The Incredibles, once threatened to punch the next person he met who referred to animation as a genre. It is a technique; a treatment that can be applied to all genres, including the documentary. The recent Oscar buzz around the outstanding Flee (which as far as I’m concerned ought to have won Best Animated Film) proves Bird’s point. It also provides an opportune moment to revisit the groundbreaking Waltz with Bashir, an extraordinarily bold, shocking, visually stunning animated documentary that broke phenomenally innovative new ground for animation when first released in 2008.
Based on a true story, the film is about writer/director Ari Folman, who fought in the Israel/Lebanon war of 1982, but has no memory of it. Throughout the story, he attempts to piece together fragments of his repressed memories by interviewing those who fought alongside him. It gradually becomes clear Folman was present at a terrible massacre so traumatic he blacked it out.
The extraordinary animation is used to riveting effect. Whether depicting a rain-swept Tel Aviv, hallucinatory visions and dreams, fierce battles, or the stunning opening wherein a pack of snarling dogs charge towards the camera, the film had no precedent. On a visual level alone, Waltz with Bashir proved a mesmerising triumph with a level of detail that really needs to be seen on a big screen to be fully appreciated.
I should make clear that Waltz with Bashir is not a political film. Misguided readings declaring it to be pro or anti-Israel are foolish (there have been attempts at both). It is neither. This is not an attempt to whitewash the Israeli Defence Force, nor condemn them outright. Critics have said by not explaining its origins, Ari Folman failed to contextualise the Israel/Lebanon war. As someone who gets continually frustrated with the general level of ignorance about the historic reasons for conflicts in the Middle East, I can understand — to a degree — this point of view. Waltz with Bashir does not detail the years of violent attacks against Christians by the PLO (they had migrated to Lebanon after King Hussein…
