100 BEST WAR MOVIES #8. Waltz with Bashir (2008)

 

            Writer, director, and producer Ari Folman spent four years creating what he calls an “animated documentary”.  The movie has the look of a rotoscope film, but it actually was done with Adobe Flash cut-outs and classical animation.  It won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and the Critics’ Choice award in the same category. It was the first animated film to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. It appeared on many top ten lists by critics. The film is autobiographical.  Folman takes as his theme the effects of war on memory. He was also interested in portraying the mental and physical damages war causes. Most of the men interviewed in the film suffered from PTSD.

 The movie begins with a jaw-dropping three-dimensionally animated scene of a pack of dogs running through the streets to a man’s apartment building.  The dogs represent a memory flashback for a friend of Ari.  The friend tells Ari each dog represented the 26 dogs he sniped during the Lebanon War of 1982.  This conversation causes Ari to confront the fact that he has holes in his memory of his experiences in Lebanon.  That very night he has his first flashback which involves himself and some naked comrades coming ashore on a beach at the city of Beirut.  Another friend theorizes that people sometimes fill in gaps in their memory with fiction.  He encourages Ari to try to fill in those gaps with the truth.  Don’t fear opening those doors, “memory takes us where we want to go”.  He assures Ari he cannot get hurt by learning the truth. This was also a message that the Israeli viewers should hav

            Ari goes on a quest to talk to comrades he served with and other veterans of the 1982 Lebanon War.  Their individual stories are vignettes that powerfully depict the nature of modern war.  Several universal truths about warfare and young soldiers shine through.  The adrenalin-fueled fear in a firefight is followed by the overwhelming silence of death.  Soldiers tend to fire their weapons at nothing and nowhere when traveling through enemy territory.  Soldiers are clueless pawns of the brass and the pols.  Surviving members of a unit suffer guilt feelings.  Unlike some anti-war movies, “Waltz with Bashir” does not glamorize the appealing aspects of armed combat.

            The flashbacks to the war and Ari’s quest to regain his memory build to the infamous   Ari’s unit is sent into western Beirut after the assassination of the Christian Phalange leader Bashir Gemayal.  The film takes its title from an incident in which a member of Ari’s unit waltzes with a machine gun in the middle of a Beirut street while under fire from snipers and RPGs and as Lebanese civilians spectate.  Time seems to stand still as he twirls amidst the bullet casings and ricochets.  The dance symbolizes Israel’s relationship with Bashir. Another soldier has his entire tank crew killed, but he swims back to his own lines. The movie includes a controversial porn scene where off duty soldiers watch an x-rated movie on a VCR. That is certainly something that happened in the war and other wars since the invention of videotapes.

            The film concludes with the Israeli Defensive Forces allowing vengeance-minded Christian Phalange militia to enter the Muslim camps.  The individual Israeli soldiers exhibit cognitive dissonance as they are slow to grasp what is clearly taking place before their eyes, abetted by their lighting the night skies with flares.  It takes three days for an Israeli general to order a stop to the killings.  The movie makes it clear that the Israeli government (Defense Minister Sharon and Prime Minister Begin) was complicit in the massacre, but Folman is not on a crusade.  He lets the audience connect the dots.  The memory theme comes full circle as Ari realizes that he had filled in the black hole of his memory of being near the atrocity by imagining that he and his comrades were instead at a beach.  The movie closes with real footage of the massacre victims as though to remind the audience that although animated, the story is true.

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  The movie is set in the Second Invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The Israeli government had its fill of PLO attacks, so the army was sent in to clear them out of southern Lebanon. Israel was hoping to install a Christian government headed by Bashir Gemayel. The invasion met strong opposition, but the army reached Beirut. The PLO was forced to leave Lebanon after a ceasefire was negotiated. But creating a Christian government was impossible. The assassination of Gemayel ended that dream. Then the massacre in the refugee camps caused outrage, including in the Israeli public. The massacre in the Sabra neighborhood and the Shatila refugee camp occurred from Sept. 16-18. The killing was done by a Christian militia. From 1,300-3,500 people were killed. The Israeli military did not kill anyone, but it kept people from fleeing the area and fired flares at night to illuminate the areas. The government learned about the war crime, but it took three days for it to order a halt. The movie does not dig deep into the role of the government, but it is clear that the army and the government looked the other way when the massacre occurred. The scandal was one factor in forcing the army to withdraw to an area along the Israeli border. An investigation led to the resignation of the defense minister Ariel Sharon. (He appears in the film receiving a call from a respected reporter and yet he does nothing.)

ACTING:   N/A                

ACTION:   A  (not much, but realistic)

ACCURACY:  A      

PLOT:  A                

REALISM:   A

CINEMATOGRAPHY:   A+

SCORE:   A

SCENE:  the sniper waltz

QUOTE:  Folman:   After the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, I lost my memory. Now in order to remember, I am looking for those who can never forget.

            I love war movies because I love Military History.  I have been attracted to war stories since I was a child because of the action, but also because war brings out all the emotions and character traits in human beings.  I prefer war movies that have action and are true to human nature.  They don’t have to be historically accurate, but I insist they not be ridiculous and unrealistic.  When you have seen as many war films as I have, you also are impressed when the movie takes a different approach to telling a war story.  “Waltz with Bashir” fits this description (as do “300” and “Oh! What a Lovely War”).  Movies like these prove that although the war movie genre (starting with “Birth of a Nation”) is almost a century old, there are still new ways to tell a war story.

            Although I have not considered documentaries when I came up with the 100 best war movies, I made an exception for this movie. When I first saw it, it did not realize that the director referred to it as an animated documentary. The Academy Awards, as well as other movie organizations, treated it as a movie, so I have some support for my including it on a list of war movies. “Waltz” looks very different from every other war film I have seen.  Folman uses a variety of animation.  The movie is mostly a blend of cut-out and classic animation.  It is influenced by graphic novels and has a scene reminiscent of Japanese anime.  He includes some three-dimensional scenes, but used the technique sparingly and only for spectacular shots.  His use of color varies depending on the mood of the scene.  The war scenes tend to be monochromatic.  The home front scenes are much more vibrant.  (He makes the point that although he was fighting only twenty minutes away, at home the public was unaffected by the war and life went on as usual.)  The shading and shadows are amazing.  The look is mesmerizing.  Blu-ray was made for movies like this.

            The movie is true to human nature mainly because these are real people who Ari interviewed and built the story on.  From my reading of men in combat, I have a good idea of how men behave under that stress.  For those vast majority of people who do not want to read extensively in this difficult area, movies can serve the purpose of educating civilians about what their young warriors go through.  This is important because these young men deserve to be understood.  Civilians need second-hand memory.  Undoubtedly, some Israelis were offended by what they saw in “Waltz”.  The fact is atrocities happen on both sides in every war.  Good war movies like this show what really happens in war, but also provide the why.