Jovenza's Review of Waltz With Bashir

Waltz With Bashir is an Israeli animated part documentary part biopic film directed and written by Ari Folman. The film is based on Folman's experience and memories from the 1982 Lebanon War.

The film follows Folman trying to remember what he can about the war, so he can figure out why has recently started to have dreams or fragmented memories. He does this by contacting old friends and men he served with and talk them through their experiences of the war with Folman, while piecing together the whole story from the story of others.

Waltz With Bashir has some great animation, very reminiscent of Waking Dream or maybe even A Scanner Darkly, but with more of an improvement from Waking Dreams shaky animation, and a difference from Scanner Darkly''s animation over live-action. The animation flows better. It is more subtle and yet intricate in expressing themes and dream like scenes.

As is most war films, the subject of post-war trauma or the effect of it on the mentality is shown a lot in this film as well. The stories that are told from different perspectives shows the experiences and events of war from different people, and this is done very effectively.

A lot of the music of 80`s punk and pop rock and classical melodic scores fit very well into the film`s storytelling. The music becomes quite effective in building up scenes of tension/chaos or trance that make scenes flow like a dream, and adding to a good feel of atmosphere of the film.

Waltz With Bashir is a very stylish and artistic film, that depicts the result of of war on people. It is an emotional and down spiraling journey into a dark time in the history of Folman's life, as is many others.

4/4 Stars (I need to work on this rating thing)