I put my jacket back on, buttoning up with numb fingers and shuffle out of the theatre. No words from the few of us present for the showing. It takes a few blocks before I can say anything to the friend with whom I’ve sat through this retold trauma. It’s not the type of movie that’s conducive to lively discussion over festive drinks afterward. You wouldn’t want to bring a first—or second—date. It’s not an easy film to talk about. But I’ll give it a go.
Waltz with Bashir, I’m sure we’ll soon find, is one of those films that is of real importance to our time. It’s an animated documentary detailing the experiences of the 1982 Lebanon war, and more specifically the massacres at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. The basic plot revolves around director Ari Folman who—after a friend tells him of a recurring nightmare relating to his experience in the war—realizes that he has no memory of his time spent serving in the Israeli army during the first Lebanon war. He then goes out to interview eight of his friends and acquaintances regarding their experiences.
The result is a harrowing of human depravity, a journey through the dark recesses of repression. As a surrealist tapestry of memory, testimonial and dream, Folman’s choice to use animation for the film is a particularly good one, as it allows audience a more imaginative plunge into the horrific reverie. Perhaps because the film is animated in a manner that doesn’t aspire to truly accurate representation, it allows for some agency in the viewer’s mind to reconstruct the brutality as he or she sees fit. And indeed, this is what Folman gives us at the end of the film when real footage from the massacres sub-in for the animation. It’s a clever reminder on Folman’s part that, no, just because the film is animated doesn’t make these events any less real. The rotting human corpses piled in the street are irrefutable testament to this reality.
That said, the grave nature of the film doesn’t mean that there aren’t moments of a lighter, striking and beautiful nature. The compelling score—put together by classical contemporary composer Max Richter—is a tear-jerker by itself. One darkly romantic scene in particular, the moment from which the film get its name, Shmuel Frenkel—an Israeli soldier—tells of an encounter his battalion had with the Palestinian combatants in the streets of Beirut. Despite the obvious danger, Frenkel steps into the open and begins to fire but it appears as though he is waltzing in the streets as the bullets rain down around him. Above him is a massive poster of Bashir Gemayal, the assassinated Lebanese president. Chopin’s Waltz from Op. 64 No. 2 plays during this scene to great effect.
In addition to this effective juxtaposition of brutal violence with classical music à la Clockwork Orange, another similar and perhaps more light-hearted—though, decidedly grotesque—moment occurs as relayed from Roni Dayag’s testimony. The men—boys, really—invade Lebanon in their tanks, but rather than dwelling on the violence that will soon occur, the soldiers revel in the beautiful landscape, all to the tune of “Good Morning Lebanon,” a song that begins as an upbeat ode to Lebanon and progresses into a violent and jaded masculine ballad. As much as the scene is a nice break from the heavy-hitting graphics and scenes that pervade the rest of the movie, I can’t tell if it’s clever irony or if it’s actually in poor taste. It must be the former, rather than the latter option, but either way it calls into question military integrity.
The film was created over a period of four years, from conception to final cut, and clocks in at 96 minutes. After his year of research, Folman created a script which was then shot in a studio, replicating the atmosphere and location of the initial interviews. After the studio film was shot and edited, a team of animators then set to work animating the film at a rate of four minutes per month, 80 per cent of which was completed by one man, Yoni Goodman, whose abilities the of the production team claim “do not represent [those of] human beings whatsoever.” As I mentioned above, this is one of the more important films that has hit the screen in the last couple of years. It incorporates what has been called a new cinematic language in order to tackle human suffering in a creative, constructive manner. While I realize the film is primarily based on the nature of post-traumatic stress disorder, it was nonetheless a little quick to absolve the Israeli soldiers of any responsibility for the massacre; I recognize it would be nearly impossible for an Israeli filmmaker such as Folman to do this, but this repeated and vehement denial seemed a little transparent.
In any event, this movie is one that will be talked about for ages. It opens up a whole new realm of interpretive possibilities with its graphic novel-esque treatment of its subject and cleverly entwines music, speech and graphics in a variety of ways in order to carry its message and trauma home from the front and into the living memory of viewers around the world.
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