Waltz With Bashir (Review)

A treat to watch

 

One of the more brilliant films I have seen recently. It is the first animated documentary film I have seen and the montage is so effective that it made me wonder why is this not a more popular medium.

The plot is kept gripping through the lens of the self-portrayal of the director who is searching for his lost memories of the war. It focuses on the psychology of the military men and the measures their minds resort to cope with the stress. The dealing of the actual massacre is not heavy handed and is approached in a balanced way, that leaves the audience with a burning desire to find out more about what transpired and how the collective failure of conscience of 3 groups of military men was brought about through systematic delegation.

The auto-ethnographic angle helps focus on the non-political and a more humane angle of Sabra and Shatila massacre of 1982, which to me was the most novel aspect of the film that experiments with a lot of ideas of movie making and pushes the limits of cinema.

Brilliantly pieced together with a comic-esque feel, Waltz with Bashir will stay in my head for the title sequence. A rash, callous and incomprehensibly inhuman act is described as a waltz. Accompanied with music that is befitting of the interpretation of the scene, it is among the best sequences in movies.