Waltz with Bashir

After having a few days to recover from the subsequent shock and depression I was left with after watching this film, I find myself unable to stop talking and or thinking about it. I just sent for it on Netflix so my husband can watch it.

The film itself, in animated form, is written and directed by Ari Folman and is an incredibly moving tale of his real life experience of dealing with his memories (or lack thereof) of the Lebanon War of 1982 and particularly the Sabra and Shatila Massacre. The massacre was carried out by the Christian Phalangists, in retaliation for the assassination of their beloved leader, Bashir, which they blamed the PLO for. While the Israeli Defense Force did not actually participate in the killings of the Palestinians and Lebanese in the camp, they did nothing to stop it either. In the film Folman addresses this issue and the guilt and trauma associated with it and it is compared to the rest of the world allowing the Nazis to perpetrate the slaughter of millions of Jews during the Shoah. While I do not think it is as simple as that, it is a sad realty none the less.

I think the film itself, artistically speaking, was incredibly beautiful and captivating albeit in a very dark way. There are many remarkable scenes and themes in the film to explore, but two things stood out to me the most. The first, was the "waltz scene" in which Shmuel Frenkel, the commander of Folman's unit runs into open fire by the enemy and starts waltzing about with his machine gun, shooting in every direction. I love this scene because it highlights the absolute sense of chaos and disorganization that seems to be plaguing the soldiers and their fight. I mean, it seems from beginning to end that when it comes to the actual fighting part, no one seems to know what they are supposed to do, their is no direction or "plan" so to speak. We see this in the scene when the men shoot their guns endlessly at this car that comes near to them (likely caused by the fear of the increase of car bombs), and in the end they find that the car was occupied by an entire family. Is this how war is fought? Do we just send our men out with no directives? Even the scene with the men in the tank, they are happily driving along in their convoy, seeming not to have any real idea of what their mission is once they get to their destination, and once under attack no one knows what to do or where to go. So, this waltz, for me at least, just emphasized this theme of chaos.

The second thing that I can't seem to get out of my mind from this film, is of course, the ending. When Folman is standing their, and the Palestinians and Lebanese are walking back into the camp towards him, witnessing for the first time the destruction and the death inflicted upon the camp by the Christian Phalangists, time seems to stand still. Even in animated form it is extremely painful to watch. However, just as you think the credits are about to roll, the film switches over into real live video of the actual event of the Palestinians and Lebanese crying out in despair over what they are witnessing. I think I stopped breathing in order to keep myself from bawling in class. As painful as it was to watch, and as nauseated as it may have made me, I am incredibly thankful to Folman for this artistic decision. That moment when the animation disappears and the faces of the REAL people are their and the REAL anguish is pouring out from them, the viewer is awoken from the "dream-like" state of the film and the realization that this is real, that this actually happened, that PEOPLE are capable of such horrific things is immediately thrown in your face. Because of the fact that it IS real and that these things DID happen, I find this absolutely necessary 1) to respect the event and the people who perished and 2) to drive home the reality of the event. However, as I think about this more, it has made me curious about something.

Folman's film is essentially about the psychological trauma of having witnessed these events and about how his mind, knowing that the event was too traumatic for him to handle, placed these memories behind a curtain where Folman could not access them. Through the course of the film and his interviews, etc., the curtain begins to slip away and things come back to him. I wonder if the moment when Folman, regaining the memories of this particular moment when the Palestinians and Lebanese were re-entering the camp and they as well as the IDF were seeing the reality of what occurred there, wasn't very much the same for him the way it is for the viewer of the film. In that moment, the curtain is completely gone, and the real faces and the real horror of what happened is there. For Folman, it cannot be hidden from him again, and for the viewer, they cannot walk away and let their mind help them deal with the story by telling themselves "it was just a movie."