Review: Riveting ‘Waltz with Bashir’

The animated documentary, “Waltz with Bashir”, brilliantly reveals the nightmare of warfare.

SAN FRANCISCO — “Waltz with Bashir” is a nonfiction adventure from Israel that revisits a Lebanon war horror by probing the traumatized memory lobes of former soldiers who were present at the incident.

Documenting their warped, fractured recollections in what may be the most truthful form possible for such material — phantasmagorical animation — writer-director Ari Folman delivers a visual dazzler and a captivating memoir about the mental ravages of war.

At the center of this trippy detective story is the 1982 massacre, committed by Christian Phalangist militiamen, of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shantila refugee camps — an act of revenge for the assassination of Lebanon’s president-elect, Bashir Gemayel. Israeli soldiers stood by while the slaughter occurred. Folman was among those Israeli soldiers.

Mad dogs with blazing yellow eyes charge through Tel Aviv in an opening passage that merits inclusion in animation’s time capsule. The dogs represent a recurring dream plaguing Boaz Rein-Ruskila, filmmaker Folman’s friend.

When Rein-Ruskila links the dream to their long-ago Lebanon mission, Folman remarks that he, himself, can’t remember the Lebanon experience. He soon visits and interviews old army comrades, a journalist, a post-traumatic-stress expert and others who he hopes can help him recall and address what happened.

The film, which features animated versions of Folman et al., combines present-day conversations with vivid flashbacks depicting the men’s war stories. Though unconnected and often surreal, the testimonies invariably lead to the massacre.

Folman’s blown memory circuits reignite, but only in bits. Amnesia, in individuals and a nation, still exists.

While the film sometimes seems as fragmented as the soldiers’ nightmares, the intensity and clarity with which Folman’s themes resonate, along with the originality of the storytelling, satisfy immensely.

A mix of “Apocalypse Now,” Picasso’s “Guernica” and Folman’s own blend of personal guilt, Israeli condition and expressionist ingredients, the movie is a work of art, an engrossing mystery and a powerful anti-war statement.

The animation (Flash, classic and 3-D) captures the weirdness of the war-zone experience and how the mind processes extreme reality. Terrific imagery abounds, from the violent yet rhapsodic title sequence to Folman’s own dream  — naked soldiers emerging from black waters and walking toward Beirut shores.

Folman also briefly breaks from animation in favor of actual archival footage — his way, it seems, of acknowledging that the massacre was real and horrific. At first, this choice seems wrong, then it feels essential. And either way, you know you’ve been watching something extraordinary.

Movie review

Waltz with Bashir ***½

With: Ari Folman, Boaz Rein-Buskila, Carmi Cna’an, Ron Ben-Yishai
Written and directed by: Ari Folman
Rated: R
Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes