WALTZ WITH BASHIR (2008)

Country: Israel | Germany | France | USA | Finland | Switzerland | Belgium | Australia

Language: Hebrew | German | English | Arabic

Director: Ari Folman

Original title: Vals im Bashir

This film breaks in many ways all the trends of movie-making around the world.

First thing is that it is animation but all the animated characters look exactly like their real counterparts. Second, it cannot be classified neither as a documentary, nor as a feature film. Third, it is finally an Israeli who tells the story from the side of Lebanese Muslims.

Waltz With Bashir is a film conceived by Ari Folman and features the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre as its theme. Folman plays himself as he is troubled by not remembering much about the massacre in which he participated. With the help of his psychiatrist, by and by, he comes to remember the incident.

Everything is very different from the conventional cinema. This film can trouble you, make you cry, disgust you and it can surprise you many times as it does when finally Folman and his psychiatrist come to the conclusion that Folman is troubled in his subconscious as he associates the atrocities committed by Nazis against his family who were survivors of Auschwitz by his own participation in the massacre. He subconsciously believes he himself has converted into a "Nazi", the word meaning evil and tormentor for him as that is what he experienced in his childhood.

Hats off to Folman.