Review by Cameron Maitland

Ever since Richard Linklater utilized documentary-like animation in his philosophical film Waking Life, directors have sought to utilize the animated documentary to tell their stories. With Waltz with Bashir, writer-director Ari Folman may be the first person to find the perfect balance between the reality of documentary and the fanciful nature of animation.

The film follows Folman’s own journey dealing with leftover dreams and memories from his time as a soldier during the 1982 Lebanon War. He’s haunted by what little he can remember but more so by how much he has forgotten. Folman journeys around Europe meeting other soldiers and trying to piece together his disparate memories into a coherent narrative. The more he hears, the more he remembers and each memory is recreated for us in rich animated form.

The animated nature of the film is really what makes it unique and, in a way, what makes it work. What would be a documentary of talking heads and sometimes cloying European psychoanalysis instead turns into a dark and surrealistic examination of the shifting memories and dreams of the soldiers. No documentary could capture a dream of a 40-foot nude woman swimming alongside a soldiers boat, but with animation the poetry and beauty of each soldier’s recollections play beautifully.

The surreal nature of the animated stories and personal nature of Folman’s vision make Waltz with Bashir an endlessly unique film with one of the most shocking and interesting takes on the Lebanon conflict in years.

Waltz with Bashir
Ari Folman | Israel/Germany | 2008 | 87min

Sun. Sept. 28 | 10:00am | Empire Granville Theatre 7
Thur. Oct. 2 | 9:30pm | Empire Granville Theatre 7
Sun. Oct. 5 | 1:00pm | Empire Granville Theatre 7