[Film was originally reviewed as part of our VIFF coverage. Review is being reposted as part of our Whistler Film Festival coverage.]
It has been years since my last trip to the theatre led to uncontrollable sobbing. Yes, there’s the occasional tear at seeing something sweet but for the most part, I haven’t lost my cool since Amistad. Until now. When the final images of Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir turned from animation to footage of the massacre, the dam opened. I’d been holding on the brink for 20 minutes but those images where the breaking point. Ten minutes of uncontrollable crying followed by another ten minutes to gather myself enough to get up.
The film is a documentary about Folman’s search for information on his mission to the first Lebanese War – a period of his life that he’s wiped from memory. He sets out to fill in the blanks and does so by speaking with comrades and friends who were with him at the time and as he digs deeper and uncovers more information, he begins to remember images, particularly a haunting beach image which is so magnificently captured in the film’s trailer.
Folman has said the film was always meant to be an animated documentary, mostly because talking to a bunch of old guys would have been boring, but I’m not sure that the film would have the same impact had it been live action. The animation keeps the viewer at bay and even when violence is taking place, there’s a disconnect; it doesn’t feel real even if you know it’s a documentary. There’s only so much violence a mind can handle, as is proven by Folman’s mental wipe of the hardships he saw while in Lebanon, but the animation here serves to keep the viewer engaged and taking it all in, slapping the “this really happened” sticker at the end of it with the actual footage. But Folman’s choice to close the film as he does doesn’t cheapen what came before it instead, one can’t help but marvel at the fact that through the entire film you knew exactly what was coming yet managed to keep it out of mind.
Though I feel the need to watch it again, I’m not sure my psyche can handle the powerful emotions that Waltz with Bashir dredged up but regardless of whether I can convince myself to go through the emotions again, this is a beautiful, engaging and haunting film and one that screams to be seen.
