Waltz With Bashir

I wish that i could come up with a quirky intro, maybe something that sets the tone of the review while also giving a bit of background on the film, but I can’t. Waltz With Bashir is so unlike anything I’ve ever seen that I’m just going to come out and say it. WWB is an Oscar nominated, R-rated, Israeli animated film. Crazy, right? Moving on.

I’ve mentioned before (and if I haven’t I’ll do it more in depth in my Monsters vs. Aliens review) that I love animated films, especially computer animated ones. WWB uses a brand new type of animation that incorporates flash animation, classic animation, and 3-d footage. Similar to rotoscoping, in which something is filmed and the animation is done on top of the actual footage, this new technique involves filming something and then drawing that footage by hand. Those drawings are then cut apart and put together using flash animation to create movement. If you are having trouble picturing it, consider yourself lucky. I know what it looks like because I had to sit through 90 minutes of it, and I’m no better of for it.

Like my position on claymation or stop-motion, this new animation style, which I’m now coining Yoni-scoping after the man who invented it, is so jarring that it takes away from the film. Whatever happens over the course of the film, I was constantly thinking about the animation. No matter what type of film is being made, the film making style should never be so dense that it takes away from the film itself. It’s a very fine line and there are films that have unique styles and it works. The examples that come to mind are adaptations of graphic novels, so it’s a story that lends itself to a different style. WWB is not a story that when you hear it you say “wow, that should be animated.”

WWB is a Ari Folman’s documentary about his search to figure out what happened to him during the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Should be animated in an invasive and new style, right? The film starts with a dream sequence that I was positive was actually a new Scion commercial. This dream is being told to Ari by one of his friends who was also a soldier. On the drive home from their dinner together, Ari has a vision of his own about the war. He realizes that he cannot remember what happened to him during the war. From there, it is a series of talking head interviews that lead to flashbacks. Of course, these flashbacks are all small pieces in Ari’s revelation.

The main reason that this movie fails for me is that the animation style takes away the realism that makes documentaries great. Documentaries work because of the connections they make between the people on screen and the audience. The audience knows that they are witnessing the retelling of a true event, which makes whatever is on screen more impacting. The lack of production value strips the films down to their basic emotions and story telling elements. When you animate a documentary, you add production value but lose all of the things that work for documentaries. Imagine something like Dear Zachary or Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired as animated features and there is no way that they have the same impact. Say the words “non-fiction cartoon” and then try to tell me that it’s not bordering on oxymoronic.

Even if the film had not been Yoni-scoped, there are still moments that just don’t work. When we finally learn what “Waltz With Bashir” means, I exhaled so loudly that everyone in the theater looked at me (Don’t worry, there were only 9 others there). Also, is it too much to ask that a movie that involves Jewish main characters and not have them mention Nazis or the Holocaust? Another one of my problems is the character of Ari’s psychiatrist, who seems to tell the audience what they should be thinking every time he’s on screen.

To close, I’m not upset that I saw WWB. It is truly unlike anything I’ve ever seen on film or ever will see. The only way I’d recommend seeing it is if you think you’ve seen everything cinema has to offer, because without seeing this film, I guarantee you haven’t.