Waltz With Bashir

I’ve been lucky enough to have seen Waltz With Bashir twice, as it is showing in the chain of cinemas I’m working in, when a customer has enquired about films currently showing, I’ve always recommended this animated documentary highly, it is a personal film like none other I’ve seen before, a film about taking responsibility, the filmmaker looks for responsibility in his attempt to recover memories from his time as a soldier during the 1982 Lebanon Israel War, to offer one negative point the film never offers enough of an historical context of the war, and I did curse myself for not having read up on it before the first time I saw the film, the animation is a fitting way to explore the unreliable memories former soldiers may have as well as the symbolic dreams that haunt them, the animation allows these elements that can’t be captured by the camera to be displayed on screen in an attempt to capture the emotional and psychological impacts of the war, the music in the film also perfectly heightens the initial feelings of excitement as a young soldier and the later horror as reality sinks in, it is anti-war film of the highest level, as the memories continue, engaging the audience, the tension begins to masterfully mount to the horrific event that the filmmaker is attempting to recall, when the film reaches its climax there is no need for anything but the reality.