WALTZ WITH BASHIR
Israel, 2008, 90 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Ari Folman.
A documentary, performed as a 90 minute video but then storyboarded for animation. And, all the more effective for that.
Ari Folman, who wrote, produced and directed, has drawn not only on his experiences in the war in Lebanon in the 1980s, but also on his subsequent blocking of the experiences, especially the Christin Phalangist massacres in two Palestinian camps, Sabra and Shatira, where Israeli military were in the vicinity and the Israeli government and Ariel Sharon may or may not have been informed beforehand.
This means that audiences, especially younger audiences for whom these events are already a quarter of a century old will need to do some homework to understand and appreciate the film.
Folman recounts how a friend approached him with his own nightmare. This triggered a desire to find out what really happened. It led him on a journey to interview fellow soldiers, officers, a TV journalist, even going to Holland to hear the memories of someone who served with him all the time. He also saw a therapist. He says that the four year production of the film, his decision to produce a straightforward documentary, interview style, but to have the animators bring to vivid life, colour and action, the frightening realities of war. This is not just the violent shooting and bombing, but the ignorance of the young recruits, their shooting at anything, their wanting to be elsewhere and, Apocalypse Now-like, their music, surfing and playing on the Mediterranean beaches before attack.
War is not only ugly, Folman concludes, it is ineffective – and, when soldiers suppress memories, they are likely to erupt at difficult and dangerous times.
The vivid credits’ sequence has 26 vicious and nightmarish dogs, hounds of hell, rampaging through the city and sets a tone for the proceedings. While there are actual interviews with the persons named, the characters are drawn, the action they describe is portrayed which gives limitless possibilities for idiosyncracies in the characters and their behaviour.
As the film builds to its climax with the massacre of the Palestinians and Folman has surfaced his ghosts and prepares to deal with them in the film, some actual footage of grieving and desperately shouting survivors concludes the film.
With Israel’s long occupation and war with Lebanon, portrayed in so many films, with the withdrawal in 2000 the subject of the 2007 Oscar-nominee, Beaufort, and with Israel’s bombing of Lebanon in 2006 while the film was in production, make this not only telling but still relevant and challenging
1.The impact of the film? For Israeli audiences? Israeli veterans of wars? Political attitudes? Impact for Palestinians? For the Lebanese? For worldwide audiences?
2.The basis of the film as a ninety-minute video, acted? The storyboarding for the animation? The effect of animation photography?
3.The quality of the animation, the style of drawing, the lines, the emphases? The subdued colours? At times the striking colours? The characters, their movements? The vistas of war? The idiosyncrasies of the characters? The details of war? The interviews, the homely conversational style? The illustration of the interviews? The introduction of live footage at the end, the aftermath of the massacres?
4.Audience knowledge of this part of 1980s history: the Palestinians bombarding Israel, Israel’s decision to invade South Lebanon, to move up as far as Beirut? The Israeli government, Ariel Sharon? The young soldiers sent, raw recruits? The Christian Phalangist movement in Lebanon? Basher as the elected president, his assassination? The Phalangists as allies of Israel and protecting Israel? The falling through of this arrangement? The civil war in Lebanon? The echos of the difficulties in Lebanon, the clash with Israel in 2006?
5.The opening, the ferocious dogs, the nightmare? The friend coming to the director to ask for an explanation? Stirring the memories of the director?
6.The director himself, his own experience, his blocking it out, post-war traumatic experience? The twenty years passing? His need to know? Stirred by his friend’s visit and the nightmare of the dogs? His own dream, the naked soldiers emerging from the sea? His decision to find out where his comrades were, go to interview them?
7.The interviews, the personalities, the memories of the past, training, war, waiting for war, on the beaches of Lebanon, their inexperience, shooting at anyone? The dangers, the tanks, the missiles, the explosions? The bombardments by planes, helicopters? Random death on each side? The soldiers and its effect? Their being so young?
8.The Apocalypse Now attitude, surfing, music, recreating on the beaches? Not wanting to go into war? The songs of the time? The irony of the song ‘I Bombed Sidon, I Bombed Beirut’ – based on an American song, ‘I Bombed Korea’?
9.The television interviewer, striding through the war zone, his crouched cameraman? His reminiscences?
10.The commander, his watching the pornographic film, making decisions? How much did he know?
11.The responsibility for the young men, trying to get in touch with headquarters? Trying to find out what they knew? The build-up to the massacres? The director’s guilt in his firing flares, enabling bombardments and deaths? The boy in the woods and his destroying the tank, his being shot?
12.The constant companion in war, in Holland, his reminiscences, filling in the background for the director? His discussions with the other men, their memories? His going to see the therapist, her comments about his responsibility and guilt?
13.The build-up to the massacres, the Christian Phalangists, the posters with Bashir? His assassination? The soldiers not knowing about the massacres, discovering the reality, the women marching out, their grieving? The issue as to how much the government and Ariel Sharon knew?
14.The live action footage of the grieving women to end the film?
15.The impact of the film as a war film, antiwar film? Critique? Israeli politics, relationships with Lebanon, the Palestinians? The subsequent history and the conflict with Lebanon? And Israeli politics? The effect of these wars on the middle-aged men at the beginning of the 21st century? The film as a possible therapy?
