Waltz With Bashir... Not nearly as graceful as one would expect.

Lemme just start by saying that this film was absolutely beautifully animated & designed. However, it fell far, far short of its ambitions. Both in terms of its message, as well as the emotional impact it was meant to have upon its audience.

The majority of the movie takes its sweet time building towards the ultimate exposure of the Christian Phalangist massacre of Palestinian refugees during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. And, the journey that Ari Folman must take to regain his memory of not only this event, but his entire involvement in the war itself. It has its moments, for sure. Some humorous, some shocking, one even very touching. However, the majority of the film's running time is spent meandering over territory that we don't need such overlong explanations of. Seemingly prolonged to fill the required running time to qualify itself as a full length feature film. It often takes about 5-10 minutes to tell us what it could have easily said in 3 or less. Making Bashir's one hour &
twenty-five minute run feel more like a frustrating 4 hour lecture.

One scene in particular, featuring a fully animated rendition of a German pornography video, runs on way past its welcome.
It is intended to show the apathy of the commanding officers, and also to serve as comic relief.
Ultimately, though, it serves neither of these intentions well. Instead, making for an
awkward, overwought, momentum-crushing scene that takes you right out of the experience of the movie.

And, last, but most certainly not the least of its sins.The ending.
An ending that is nearly pitch-perfect. One that takes us through the horrific after-math of the genocide that occured in the Sabra & Chatila refugee districts in western Beirut on September 17th of 1982.
Showing us in the most matter-of-fact, minimalist terms it can. Right up until the final push-in on Folman's face, and his reaction to the weeping mothers, children, and elderly survivors. A moment that chilled me right to the bone, and would have been the best place to cut straight to the credits. But instead, it cuts to a bunch of ham-fisted, manipulative, over-bearingly scored news-reel clips of the same thing for the final two minutes of the picture. Completely ruining what had been constructed prior to this verbose, redundant coda. I really, really wanted this to be an excellent film. But, alas. It seems it was not meant to be. Or, perhaps I set my expectations far too high.
Either way... My final rating: 6/10


To those who were hoping Waltz would turn out to be this year's Persepolis, I am deeply sorry.