Waltz with Bashir Reviews

Aprovechando una maratón de documentales que me hice hace poco, he decido comentar este documental animado aclamado por la crítica como una supuesta obra de culto. Pero ¿es realmente Waltz With Bashir una buena película?
Waltz With Bashir va sobre lo que vivió Ari Folmant y sus conocidos durante la guerra de Líbano en 1982.
Vamos a empezar por lo mejor que hace la película y eso es la ambientación de la misma. Hace mucho tiempo que no me sentía tan inmerso en una película. Todas las escenas de la cinta se sienten reales y el escenario es lo suficientemente bien elaborada como para sentir los acontecimientos que han pasado por el. A veces la película mete situaciones irreales como la escena del Vals en medio de una guerra de trincheras que pueden llegar a descolocar un poco sobre la plausibilidad del escenario, pero dado que todo el Film es una anécdota de los personajes puedo dejar pasar esto como una interpretación de los mismos. Una especial mención al final el cuál te dejara helado con las imágenes en pantalla sobre los muertos de la masacre de Sabra y Chatila. Simplemente puedo decir que la representación de la guerra es casi perfecta.
Como bien dije la película se narra a través de las anécdotas de los personajes, los cuales tienen un desarrollo muy competente a decir verdad. Todos aportan sus puntos de vistas sobre la guerra y nos cuentan sus respectivas experiencias con esta e incluso hay cierta exploración psicológica en ellos sobre los efectos secundarios de la guerra. Quizás algo que si no me ha terminado de comprar es el tropo de la pérdida de memoria en el protagonista, aunque en este caso no lo veo tan insultante dado el contexto, y el post traumatismo del mismo. Ciertamente no le encuentro nada muy grave a este apartado de la película, por lo que concluyo que tiene una buena exploración de personajes.
Un punto más a favor de la película es su exploración temática. Esta claro que la película intenta retratar los horrores de la guerra y como estos afectan a las vidas de los soldados; desde la perdida de memoria, los traumas e incluso el desamparo emocional. Todo lo anterior mencionado son temas que la película explora de forma correcta.
Agradezco que simplemente se centrará en representar la guerra y el impacto que esta tiene sobre los militares, y no tanto sobre los problemas que se dieron durante la invasión Israelí a nivel político, ciertamente hubiera sido meterse más a la boca, aunque tampoco negaré que quizás se perdió una buena oportunidad para hacer a la película más profunda y compleja.
Hasta el momento les he vendido la película como si fuera una obra maestra, pero realmente no lo es.
El mayor error de la película es la constante falta de tensión, hablamos de sucesos narrados por los personajes, así que sabemos de principio a fin que vivirán y que podrán salir de la situación, por lo que jamás sentirás que los sucesos de la película tienen una repercusión directa y mucho menos una relevancia enorme al guión.
Otro error de la cinta es que realmente no tiene una trama como tal, son simplemente historias de antiguos soldados durante la guerra que les toco vivir, nada más. Comprendo que la película es un documental y que justamente por eso tiene dicho formato, pero se siente como mini entrevistas de personajes expectantes con un tema en común que como una verdadera historia con conflicto sobre la guerra de Líbano.

Conclusión:
¿Es Waltz With Bashir una buena película?
-Sí.
Waltz With Bashir es una buena película que retrata a la perfección los sucesos de la guerra con una muy buena animación, personajes con desarrollos, y una decente exploración temática.

¿La recomiendo?

-Más o menos.
Ciertamente será una película que aburrirá a varios por su falta de tensión y trama, pero realmente vale la pena mirarla por su hermosa y tétrica representación del escenario, y como un buen documental sobre un trágico suceso.

Nota: 7/10

You can achieve and try everything with this concept of animation. I like the recall and research of th epast style,the protogonist talking with friends and psichiatrists, trying to discover his role in a heavy national issue: the guilt of jews commiting a massacre of palestinian lebaneses in Sabra and Shatila, bieng compared with the holocaust. Great moments, the tanks over Lebanon with music a la 'Apocalipsis now', the waltz among the bullets, the dreams.

... With Trauma Inducing Tolerance


A wrong assumption that proved genocidal. How infuriatingly futile could lives be worth under the orchestrations of war. Even in animation, in non-linear documentation. Dreams. Delusion. Disillusionment. We're nothing but pawns.

That cacophony of wailing Palestinian women would tingle a guilt long dormant. In fact, the labels (Christians, Phalangists, Muslims, Palestinians, Lebanese, Jews) are enough to tickle for a laugh at how we've divided ourselves into categories, classes, races, castes, sects, adherences; as if incendiaries that would soon only fizzle out after a body count.

No wonder Ari Folman didn't have a say at all. The subconscious just had to do what it could. To forget.
But the visions of Sabra and Shatila massacre must creep up. It needed to be told.
And this guilt of having survived, or being the one to survive, it needed to be felt, to suffer through until you could wriggle free from it with a conviction that it must not happen again.
Although it might. And it will. Again and again.

Ah, Bashir! Ah, humanity!

Since I kept hearing some really good things about this flick, I was really eager to check it out. Well, eventually, I was really impressed as the damned thing turned out to be even better than I expected. Indeed, it really blew me away and it turned out to be easily one of the best movies released in 2008 that I have seen so far. Not only it turned out to be a heartbreaking and fascinating picture, I was also amazed about how original the whole thing was. Indeed, it is a very original animated picture, something really unique, and it is pretty obvious that they would have probably never succeeded in telling this story with a traditional live action version or something more straightforward. Furthermore, as it was pointed out by Roger Ebert, it was also a devastating picture. Indeed, not only it was a really original feature, it was also an important movie dealing with a horrible page of history but, on top of that, they also developed this tale from a point of view dealing with the human mind and psychology. That's why using animation was not a useless gimmick in this case as it allowed the makers to deliver some surrealist imagery to display dreams, hallucinations and subconscious traumas. To be honest, it is a bit messy and the lack of narrative structure can be slightly frustating but it might have more to do with the fact that we have been so addicted to the generic basic narrative rules (introduction, development, conclusion). Anyway, to conclude, even though it might be a rather heavy movie, I thought it was quite fascinating and if you don't mind getting slightly depressed after watching a feature, you should definitely check this one out.

''Memory is dynamic, it’s alive. If some details are missing, memory fills in the holes with things that never happened.''

An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.

Ari Folman: Himself

Vals Im Bashir(2008) translating as Waltz with Bashir.
So what is Vals Im Bashir? It is a film project from Israeli director Ari Folman and quite easily among the standout films of 2008, with its surreal animation style and abrupt way of portraying horrific events and genocide. The events concerning the Sabra and Shatila massacre, in which Palestinian men, women and children were massacred by Christian Phalangists as revenge for the assassination of their leader and idolized Bashir Gemayel. The Israelis involvment with the killings is shrouded in mystery, even the sending of flares into the night sky to assist the Phalangists seems baffling.
Vals Im Bashir is also told mostly in the language and dialect of Hebrew.



Taking a rather dreamy documentary approach to his narrative, Folman presents his story through the eyes of his own experience as he tries to uncover his lost memory involving the Lebanon War twenty years past. Through this direct approach to storytelling, the movie immediately achieves a sense of realism, and when used in combination with the other worldly animation that merges with the technique style used in the masterful A Scanner Darkly, strikes a poignant balance between dream-like reminiscence and in-the-moment revelation. In this sense Folman manages to bridge the gap between flashback and real-time storytelling.
Taking his time to talk to several people involved in the war along side himself, Folman presents his character as conducting interviews. Their names will appear in the corner of the screen, and the styles used often echo those found in documentaries. In essence then, what unfolds is virtually an animated documentary of sorts, telling the story of how Folman in real life eventually begins to remember his time serving as a soldier.

Although this straight forward approach to indulging in something of an honest perspective history lesson involving the Lebanon War provides ample interest; It is when Folman uses the animation present in his film to propel forth his story that the project excels; traveling back into his memories of the war itself and presenting first hand accounts. Through these scenes the film goes to great lengths to provide both hard hitting accounts on life during the war as a soldier, and surreal images which deal more with the psychological implications of war. It is during these sequences that Waltz with Bashir achieves its greatest sense of relevancy, merging all three elements of its presentation with grace, significance and well conceived direction. As a war movie, the film and Folman seem to refuse to take a stance on the general concept of war, instead showing what life was like during such times with little to no bias either way; like the masterpiece Apocalypse Now, Waltz with Bashir isn't interested in the politics involved, but more with the humanity that makes war breathe, shoot and come alive in fear. It's a story that lacks a position but is far greater off because of it; war is war and Folman knows this all too well, he just has his own personal story to tell… that is, once he remembers it.

For someone suffering from selective amnesia however, Folman tells a solid tale. Taken as a whole, Waltz with Bashir is a slow moving, but well delivered and insightful piece of cinema that not only sheds light on the people involved and a historical event often shadowed by larger accounts, but it allows the medium to breathe. There are some problems included here, but only in minor details, most of which reside in the somewhat oddly placed third act that shows paradoxically Israeli Soldiers, certainly some of them reported in the massacres, sometimes becoming systematic exterminators.
If this project is maybe considered as propaganda then it thankfully does not side with Israeli thinking nor does it side completely with Palestinian ideology. The massacre and harming of civilians is certainly not acceptable. Yet as we watch we begin to see the chaos and uncaring attitude of the proprietors of the massacre and War. 
Children with RPGs in fields, Soldiers urinating on enemy corpses, Palestinians lined up and shot...Waltz with Bashir holds no punches in criticizing itself.

Nevertheless there is no denying that what Folman has to say here is not only important and relevant to us many years on, but that it forms a story that moves, feels alive and isn't afraid to ridicule the people in power and the military drones. There are moments of tension, comedy and insightful characterization that go beyond even the most overt of films that force such elements down your throat. Instead Waltz with Bashir is a gradually enveloping affair that slowly reveals itself as the runtime comes to a close. Taking full advantage of the animated medium and combining it with a beautiful score and a coherent, intelligent and enlightening script, Folman delivers a memorable and confronting biographical drama that is always interesting to watch, even if it all does feel like a nightmarish dream...Waltz with Bashir taunts us into waking up and shows us this nightmare is real.