Ari Folman’s “Waltz with Bashir”

Last year at Cannes, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's Persepolis, a feature-length comic-book animation film about the suppression of freedom in today's Iran, was awarded a Special Jury Prize by the International Jury.

Persepolis has yet to be shown in Iran, although it was released in Lebanon.

This year at Cannes, Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir, a feature-length animated documentary, tackles a taboo theme never treated before in Israeli media. Although it is certain the film will be released in Israel, the questioning in the film may diminish its chances for full acceptance by the Israeli community at home and abroad.

An Israeli-French-German coproduction, Waltz with Bashir chronicles apparent Israeli complicity in the June 1982 massacre of hundreds (estimated as high as 3,000) Palestinian civilians by Lebanese Phalangists in the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila.

Waltz with Bashir is the traumatic journey of the filmmaker himself into his own past as a young soldier during the Lebanon Crisis. In June of 1982, when Israeli forces invaded Lebanon and attacked Beirut itself, the stated intent was to drive the Palestinian forces out of southern Lebanon. Three years later, in 1985, with the conflict still unresolved, Israel withdrew from Lebanon, leaving the conflict between the country's religious groups unresolved.

Queried as to why he had made Waltz with Bashir, Ari Folman replies in his pressbook that it was "a journey that tried to figure out a traumatic memory from the past, a commitment to a long term therapy."

He also underscores how difficult it was for him to make this journey. "My therapy lasted as long as the production of Waltz with Bashir - four years." Further: "I'd say the filmmaking part was good, but the therapy aspect sucks."

So far as the title of the film itself is concerned, the reference is to Israeli armed assistance given to Bashir Gemayel, the young, charismatic leader of the Christian Phalangist Militia. Chosen to be elected President of Lebanon, and proposed friend of Israel, Gemayel was killed by a massive explosive detonated while he was giving a speech in East Beirut.

Bashir Gemayel's murder triggered a drive for revenge by fired-up Phalangists to find and kill armed PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) fighters in the two Palestinian refugee camps in West Beirut, Sabra and Shatila - camps surrounded by a circle of Israeli tanks. By this time, however, the PLO combat fighters had already left Lebanon under a truce agreement. Only civilians - women, children, old men - were left in the refugee camps. Over the next three days, all were massacred by the Phalangists, some with cruelty that defies description.

When camera crews were finally allowed to enter the camps, the news shocked the world. Only a few minutes of this authentic TV footage can be seen - at the very end of Waltz with Bashir. Occasionally, along the way, portrait images of Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin can be seen in the background, as responsible figures who are pulling the strings of the invasion in the first place.

The rest is animated documentary scenes.

Waltz with Basir originated as real video, most of it shot in a sound studio. From this material a storyboard with some 2300 illustrations was drawn that was later turned into animation.

The story begins with a man's recurrent dream of ravaging dogs racing down empty streets and alleys. Since the dream gives the man no rest, he visits a bar to tell the story to a friend, a filmmaker, one who had shared his frightful military experiences during the Lebanon Invasion.

The filmmaker is Ari Folman himself, who surprises his friend by saying he cannot remember anything about those times. 

To regain the distinctly unpleasant memories he had suppressed, Folman sets out on a journey to visit others who, as young soldiers, had participated in the Lebanon Invasion and had experienced the horrors of war firsthand.

Of the nine ex-Israeli soldiers interviewed for the film, seven agreed to be rendered in the animated version as actual people. Two others, who did not want to appear on camera, were played by actors.

Waltz with Basir is an extraordinary film. By replacing talking-head interviews with animated action sequences, the viewer is attuned to experience what happened on the outskirts of Beirut firsthand.

Asked in an interview why he felt he had to make a film to refresh his own memory, Folman responded: "I believe that there are thousands of Israeli ex-soldiers who keep their war memories deeply depressed. They might live the rest of their lives like that, without anything ever happening. But it could always burst out one day, causing who-knows-what to happen to them. That's what Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is all about."

Images courtesy of the filmmaker.