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Waltz With Bashir |  | Director: Ari Folman
Actors: Ari Folman, Ron Ben-Yishai, Ronny Dayag, Dror Harazi, Yehezkel Lazarov
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Category: DVD
List Price: $28.96
Buy Used: $6.25
as of 3/10/2010 14:59 PST details
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Rating:  51 reviews
Sales Rank: 6263
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: Hebrew (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Subtitled), English (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 99
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.5
MPN: 043396289932
UPC: 043396289932
EAN: 0043396289932
ASIN: B001KVZ6AM
Theatrical Release Date: December 26, 2008
Release Date: June 23, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
WALTZ W/BASHIR (DVD/WS 1.78 A/DD 5.1/ENG-BOTH)
Amazon.com
Waltz with Bashir presents an intriguing riddle: is a documentary still a documentary if it's animated? Taking over where fact-based animations like Waking Life and Chicago 10 left off, Israel’s Ari Folman tries to wrap his head around 1982's Lebanon War (the title refers to Lebanese leader Bashir Gemayel). Why do disturbing dreams plague his former army colleagues, while he remembers nothing? Folman meets with nine of them to find out. As they speak, animators recreate their experiences, but instead of rotoscoping or video-capture, Folman first shot his film on video and then assembled an animated version from the resulting storyboards. This graphic-novel approach suits their strange, surrealistic stories and parallels the work of Black Hole's Charles Burns, who tends to walk on the shadowy side (as opposed to Marjane Satrapi's more fanciful Persepolis). War may be hell, but moments of grace and beauty shine through, best exemplified by Roni Dayag’s recollection of a late-night swim away from the scene of a beachfront battle. Decades later, he still remembers the soothing peacefulness of the water. These reminiscences nudge Folman's repressed memories back to the surface, culminating in a horrific massacre to which he bore witness. Arguably, he didn't need to include actual footage of the deceased when stylized graphics get the point across fine. If Waltz with Bashir isn't a documentary in the conventional sense, it doesn't resemble most animated efforts either. What matters more is the harrowing narrative he constructs from out of the minds of these haunted men. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Stills from Waltz With Bashir (click for larger image)
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 51
 Brave, unflinching look at war's horrors and moral costs March 7, 2010
Alan A. Elsner (Washington DC)
This movie is one of the best accounts of the trauma that affects young men -- boys really -- sent to fight wars which deeply affects them decades after.
The war in question is the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon which quickly went bad and ended up with the Israelis providing a security perimeter for Christina Falangists to enter the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla where they massacred several hundred civilians.
The Falangists were avenging the assassination of their leader, Bashir Gemayel, who gives his name to the movie's title. The Israelis ought to have know their Christian allies were bent on revenge. Moreover, on the night of the massacre, there were numerous reports trickling out of the camps that atrocities were taking place -- but no-one acted on them. The Israelis only stopped the killing the next morning.
Years later, through interviews with Israeli soldiers who took part in the war and psychologists, this animated movie examines the deep guilt and trauma many still feel. The animation is beautifully done -- some scenes are truly lyrical -- and it somehow allows the characters to become "everyman." We see young, poorly trained kids panic under fire and lash out by firing indiscriminately themselves killing civilians. We see a 12-year-old Palestinian kid wielding a rocket-propelled grenade, determined to kill and ending up himself being killed. The opening scene with ravening, yellow-eyes wolves bounding through the streets of Tel Aviv to howl under the balcony of one ex-soldiers is particularly striking.
These kind of scenes could apply to any war or insurgency and parallels between this conflict and the current U.S. struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan are clear and urgent. Yet there is a special Israeli angle. Some of these soldiers were the children of Holocaust survivors, making the moral failures of this war even more traumatic.
Making this movie was an act of courage and honesty and we should honor the filmakers and listen to their message.
 Vile, Terrorist Propaganda March 6, 2010
Keri
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I gave it a one because -9 was not an option.
If you want Vile, Terrorist Propaganda you're in luck.
If you like truth, avoid at all costs, you will have wasted your money and placed a coating of mud on your mind.
In the "special features" the director of this mess states it's slow because the budget was low. The movie portrays the Israeli Forces as bloodthirsty confused dope-smoking cowards, and the terrorists as the brave poor victims and victorious underdogs.
A Powerful Work Of Art And Conscience. February 12, 2010
Mr. Fellini (El Paso, Texas United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Waltz With Bashir" is one of the great recent examples of how animation can be used not just as a tool for children's entertainment, but as a serious film medium that can have a powerful impact. It is unashamed at being an anti-war film, this is because the director lived and survived the 1982 invasion of Lebanon by Israel, he participated in it and had things to say through his memories and talent. Some on here are going nuts by bashing the film as "anti-Israel," shocked at a movie that would present a realistic, honest portrait of a certain political fantasy they want to keep alive as do most statist devotees. But "Waltz With Bashir" is not just about Israel, it is about war in general, about the experience of war and the brutal reality of violence. As an animated movie, it has deeper, more intelligent things to say than typical gung ho works like "Band Of Brothers" or even the recent "The Hurt Locker."
The film chronicles director Ari Folman's search for his memories of the Lebanon War and more specifically, the Sabra and Shatila massacre, a brutal massacre of Palestinian civilians by the Nazi-inspired Christian Phalange, which at the time was supported by Israel considering the Phalange's leader, Bashir Gemayal, was a potential puppet ruler the Israelis sought to install (for a detailed account of the whole war and the assassination of Bashir Gemayal, read Robert Fisk's brilliant book "Pity The Nation: The Abduction Of Lebanon"). Folman revists old army buddies to recount the war and his own memories of the night Israeli troops fired flares into the sky and stood by as the Phalange carried out is butchery.
This is not the sort of material one would immediately think of as cartoon material, but in the hands of Folman the movie is a masterpiece of the animation medium. The images are haunting and sometimes breathtaking in their depth and scope. Like the best films, the images sometimes say and express profound ideas not found in just the dialogue or plot. The beautiful music by Max Richter helps enhance the film's hypnotic power. Folman's story brilliantly travels from documentary to psychological landscapes, from questions of history and politics to topics of psychology and how memories work and transform themselves. Folman also manages to tell very human stories without resorting to holding big banners in our faces. The politics and other topics all come with a real sense of humanity.
One of the great achievements of "Waltz With Bashir" is how it uses its medium to explore the subject of war. There are moments as surreal as "Apocalypse Now" and as raw and honest as Oliver Stone's "Platoon." Folman is making big statements, but he makes them by simply sharing what he and his fellow soldiers witnessed during the invasion of Lebanon. The visions of war and death can sometimes be terrifying in their clarity. Like the great Israeli writers Uri Avnery and Gideon Levy, Folman doesn't march in step with those who only wish to glorify the Israeli state and every single one of its military operations, he puts a mirror to the reality of the violence and terror of war because no matter how much some try to paint over them with heroism, wars usually spiral into orgies of human corruption and criminal mayhem. In the era of Gaza and Afghanistan, "Waltz With Bashir" has very relevant things to say about the realities of occupation, the politics of war states and the human toll they impose on general populations. The ending of the movie is an especially shattering experience that brings the point home.
"Waltz With Bashir" asks tough questions, which is more than can be said about typical movies these days. It challenges the viewer, this is no doubt what disturbs the die hard Israel supporters on here who immediately respond to the movies with a whole scroll of "facts" or "historical notes" instead of discussing what Folman has to say, or even the accuracy of what Folman shows (and it is accurate even when one looks at Israeli scholarship on the issue). This is an important war film, because it is actually about war itself, it isn't just trying to tell a war story. Folman has made a work of truth and conscience, it will stand the test of time.
 Waltz with Bashir? February 9, 2010
Thomas C. Osborn (Southern Indiana)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was disappointed by this film. I had hoped for more insight regarding the Israel-Lebanon War. I thought this merely an exercise in soul cleansing. Not that that is bad. I just don't see how this film could be so highly rated. I guess the PC factor played into since it was sort of anti-Israeli. I learned nothing that was already common knowledge.
Really quite a film January 24, 2010
One-Line Film Reviews (Easton, MD)
The Bottom Line:
An "animated documentary" which moves along in a way that most docs don't, Waltz with Bashir concerns itself with different perspectives on Israel's controversial 1982 war with Lebanon and delivers a load of fascinating material in addition to some beautiful images; the Academy may have passed over Folman's impressive film, but that doesn't mean you should.
3.5/4
Showing reviews 1-5 of 51
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