Linkshoch Wonderful Movie

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Mikael Kuoppala "Waltz with Bashir" is a documentary that uses very unique devices for the genre. And I don't mean only the fact that it's an animation. Fictional movies depicting real life events are often held back by their documentary style, but this one is a documentary elevated by its strongly fictional style of storytelling that leans on its psychologically fascinating structure, artistic visual qualities and effective, often very beautiful soundtrack.The biggest accomplishment here is the fact that "Waltz with Bashir" isn't only about the historical viewpoints of the Lebanon war and the personal journey presented. It transcends that initial premise and becomes a universal, effective story about conflict, about human nature and our violence.

Jackson Booth-Millard I knew this Israeli / Hebrew film was animated, and I knew it had something to do with a war, but I had no idea it was a real life subject, it is essentially like A Scanner Darkly, cartoon imagery put over the real life filming. Basically in 1982, Ali Forman was aged nineteen and working for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as an infantry soldier, in 2006, he meets former army friend who tells him of his nightmarish experiences from the Lebanon War. Folman is surprised he cannot remember anything from this period, but later at night he has a vision from the night of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, he cannot clearly recall the realities of it, he has memories of himself and fellow soldier comrades bathing by the seaside in Beirut at night under the light of descending flares. Folman meets with a childhood friend who advises him to find other people in Beirut at the same time to understand what happened there and revive his own memories. Folman, amongst others, meets friends and other soldiers who served in the Lebanon War, a psychologist, and Israeli TV reporter Ron Ben- Yishai who covered Beirut at the time. Folman eventually realises he was with soldiers surrounding the Palestinian refugee camp, he was among those soldiers firing flares in the sky for the Lebanese Christian Phalange, and a massacre was perpetrated inside. Folan concludes that his amnesia of the war stemmed from his feeling as a teenage soldier that he was as guilty of the massacre as those who committed the atrocity, the end of the film dissolves from animation into actual footage of the aftermath of the massacre. With contributions from Ronny Dayag, Dror Harazi and Ori Sivan. The documentary has a very different and ingenious concept, memories from a bleak time history are reignited after twenty-five years, with the war stories presented in flash and 3D animation, adding to the surrealistic edge of the film, it doesn't shy away from the dark moments, with traumatic and almost hallucinatory sequences of the horrors of war and the crimes committed during, all together it is a most interesting animated documentary. It won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, it was nominated the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year, and it was nominated the BAFTAs for Best Film Not in the English Language and Best Animated Film. Good!

avik-basu1889 'Waltz with Bashir' is an animated documentary written and directed by Ari Folman. The film follows Folman in his search for his lost memories from the time when he served in the Israeli army during the traumatic Lebanon War of 1982.The first thing that I realised while watching 'Waltz with Bashir' is the fact that the animation was absolutely indispensable and this film could never have been made in any other possible way. This is because although this is at the basic level a documentary, but Folman takes a lot of artistic liberty to recreate the real life events and these recreations would never have been possible without the medium of animation. So the animation actually enhances and assists Folman's storytelling instead of sticking out as a gimmick. Thanks to the meticulous animation and the visual attention to detail, the whole film looks gorgeous. Every still shot can be framed and laminated to admire the beauty that is on show. The surreal imagery of the animation will stay with me for a long, long time. Folman uses the animation to juxtapose the beauty of the visuals with the devastating nature of the events during the war that the visuals were capturing. There are multiple haunting images and shots which are devastating to watch like certain scenes in 'Schindler's List'.The screenplay for the film and the subject is deep and thematically rich. Although Folman never shies away from the heavy nature of the subject matter, but Folman's style keeps the film vibrant and energetic throughout. Even viewers who generally tend to avoid war films will find this engrossing.The primary themes running through the film are the loss of innocence and guilt. We see Folman interview other men who like him served in the Lebanon War. We see these men recall the horrors of war that they had to witness when they were just young boys pushed into this hellish environment. Pretty much all the stories and interviews are interconnected. All the stories underline the madness and the futility of war. The stories also establish the mental struggles that these war veterans have had to deal with after coming back. The singular element that connects these mental issues of most of these men is the element of guilt. The guilt of having to kill human beings and also the guilt of surviving the war when many of their colleagues couldn't. Water bodies like the ocean play an important and symbolic role in many of their stories. Folman uses this aforementioned theme of guilt very craftily and uses it to connect the issues concerning the nation of Israel as a whole in the political scenario with the personal issues troubling the individuals covered in this film.Another very relevant theme dealt with by Ari Folman is the dynamic nature of memories. He explores and establishes that someone's memories can be fabricated by others or by himself/herself. A person can choose to completely forget certain aspects of his/her life because of certain subconscious assumptions. 'Waltz with Bashir' is an artistic masterpiece. Its substance and style go hand in hand and complement each other instead of one submerging the other. It is a political film that is ambitious in its style and becomes more than just about politics and war. It becomes a transcendental work about human emotions.

BirchBoxer Waltz with Bashir is animated like nothing I have ever seen before. Friends have compared it to a grittier Avatar: The Last Airbender. This gritty stylized animation does wonders for the film, it always looks it's best when combat or some form of action is happening. In turn allowing the film to help convey the animosity of combat along with it's many other messages. The scoring of this film also does wonders for it, such as the juxtaposition of a soft piano medley over an intense gun fight. This film has it's moments that will blow you away and thanks to all the artistic trait of this film they are delivered perfectly. My only warning for this film is that it starts a bit slow, but it ramps itself amazingly in the second half in artistic value, character development, and plot. I recommend this to anyone who even only vaguely would like to see it.