Waltz with Bashir

Waltz with Bashir is a 2008 Israeli animated war documentary film written and directed by Ari Folman, it was also advertised as being the first ever feature-length animated documentary. The film is banned in some Arab countries, with the most harsh critics in Lebanon, as the film depicts a vague and violent time in Lebanon's history. A movement of bloggers, among the Lebanese Inner Cicle, +961 and others have rebelled against the Lebanese government's ban of the film, and have managed to get the film seen by local Lebanese critics, in defiance of their government's request on banning it.

The film seems to focus upon the themes of reality and memory, and it is interesting to see how differently each soldier dealt with the events that occurred during the Lebanon War, some are clearly more traumatised than others (Seeing that we after all start with a character that has been haunted by the same recurring nightmare for a few years), and others... perhaps even far worse than we could imagine.

One of the more interesting scenes.

For awhile, it did just feel like I was watching through a series of animated interviews, with flashback scenes added in, but they were all done really differently to one another that it once again proved interesting listening to all these incredibly different recaps by those who had been part of the Israel Defence Force. Even the explanation given by a psychologist (From the screenshot above) in the film was extremely interesting to listen to, because, we do tend to wonder how far someone can deny the horrors of reality before they are inevitably and forcefully pulled back down.

I actually found the overall visual style for the film to be quite beautiful and stylish, I do believe that I have noticed some rather noir-ish influences to the style itself, especially with the dark hues that were used for most scenes (The main character especially, Ari Folman, has a very detective (Not particularly the hardboiled type but still) vibe about himself, which makes sense seeing that he is after all investigating something throughout this film). The film overall had a really appealing style to it, and is a lot more unique than I first gave it credit for when watching the trailer.

I was also especially curious about how the animation was done for this film, seeing how strangely fluid some movements were at times, and how other scenes then appeared more differently animated... such as the way their faces moved and expressions changed (It further adds to the surrealism of the entire thing).

After doing a little investigation however, it would appear that my first guess was wrong, and that rotoscoping was not used at all for any parts of the film (Which obviously makes me all the more impressed). What they did instead was to do dramatic live recordings on a sound stage, and that included both the interviews and the war re-enactments. It was then converted into a storyboard after, and then an animatic. After that, came the animating itself, with the animators moving the keyframe in a classic cutout style.

Autodesk Maya was used only for the turning points in the film, such as one scene that goes from snow in the forest, up into the sky and then down into the boat. It is definitely noticeable how focused they were on creating a realistic enough style for this film. Photographs were taken before extra details were added for the backgrounds.

Overall, it was an interesting watch (Can't exactly say that I enjoyed, can I?), unsurprisingly, numerous scenes did pull at the heartstrings and true be told, the more graphic scenes were done in a rather tasteful manner (Though this refers to the more surreal scenes), and really added to the already tragic mood and atmosphere of the overall film.

And the ending... well, I don't want to spoil much, but it would definitely create a strong enough impact for this film's initial message. A documentary is not just meant to inform others, but to also make them realise and perhaps think a little more about it, which is why I believed that it was a pretty clever choice. 

It also sadly begs the question however whether an animated interpretation of real life events won't be taken as seriously as a live recorded one? Sure, it will still make people feel something, but what if they simply see this as just another story and not more?