Waltz with Bashir
Waltz with Bashir is an innovative animated feature film from an
Israeli filmmaker interested in reconnecting with his experiences from the
Israeli army and his involvement with certain occasions of mass murder during
the Palestinian conflict of 1982. In search of enlightenment about what he
suspects are repressed memories from that time, the director visits several of
his former comrades and compares notes on their recollections of the time in
service. Thanks to contributions from a recurring cast of interviewees the
collective memory is rejuvenated over the film’s course, leading to key
reminiscences on the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. Contributors apparently
voice the animated versions of themselves and, while stylised, the renderings
of these characters and their environs are imbued with a strong sense of
realism, perhaps also as a result of the use of photography to underpin the
artwork.
For most of the time, emphasis
is placed on the human side of the experiences of the former comrades. In this
regard, they are presented as whole entities, particularly so because we
encounter them in their civilian roles, post-conflict, as they recount tales
from the war front. The rhythm of the 1982 conflict for these soldiers is
suggested by depictions of beach-side camps where soldiers relax and sunbathe inbetween patrols, during which they often engage
in deadly exchanges with their guerilla enemy. Much of this kind of thing has
been done in films such as Apocalypse Now
and Full Metal Jacket, but never, as
here, with specific focus on the Israeli army. The soundtrack of films about the
Vietnam war typically feature pop music of the day,
but Waltz with Bashir features, among
others, intriguing rock numbers about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Whether
these were written specifically for the film is not made clear but, if soldiers
of the day listened to them they provide an interesting insight into certain
attitudes to the conflict.
After much soul searching and
several analyses by psychologists and therapists, focus eventually shifts to
the events surrounding the Sabra and Shatila massacres and, accordingly, from
the anecdotes of the director’s comrades to the testimony of a more senior army
official and a news reporter who covered the horrific events. We know from
early on that the massacres are the director’s motivation for his exercise in
rehabilitating his memories, and his presentation of the cold-blooded
executions of the Palestinians is at the same time a brave move and also the
only possible way to go given the trajectory of his investigation and the
common-knowledge status of the facts of the matter. One is well-aware of the
sensitivity of these matters and, while we sense that his apologia is well-intentioned, one is struck by the inherent
tradeoff between the personal sense he makes of his situation, and the consideration
for those personally affected by the slaughter. Interestingly, no Palestinian
voices are heard until, near the conclusion, news reel footage of the day shows
a woman ululating with grief as murdered Palestinian bodies bloat under the sun
in the streets beside her. She says something to the camera that isn’t
translated. While this is an exclusively Israeli account then, the townspeople,
in the persona of this distraught woman, are to have the last word.