A few days back, Kurt posted a comment regarding Waltz with Bashir, an animated film which premiered at Cannes earlier this month. His comment at the time asked whether it could be the first big hit of Cannes and after seeing the trailer for the film, I would not be surprised if such was the case.

Written and directed by Ari Folman, the film is a documentary of Folman’s search for details about his experience in the military during the Lebanese war of 1982. He does so by speaking with old friends and visiting places which effectively cause the flooding of memories.

The film uses the rotoscoping technology which Richard Linklater used for both Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly in which a scene is shot, usually without backgrounds, and then animated. The result in Linklater’s films is certainly amazing but nothing as breathtaking when compared to Folman’s film which appears to be heavy on the yellows and black. There’s a load of information on the film’s official site about the process of creating the film.

This is not the first film to tackle the documentary genre with animation; last year we had Brett Morgen’s little seen but well received Chicago 10 but while I was only curious about seeing Morgen’s film, Folman’s seems that much more attractive and I’m hopeful it gets picked up for distribution.

Thanks to the nice folks at Twitch for the heads up on the Cannes promotional trailer which has been released as well as pointing the direction to the official site which has information on the making of the film, the filmmaker and a couple of other clips for your viewing pleasure.

Check out the trailer tucked under the seat!