The beginning of ""Waltz with Bashir"" weaves between conversations between friends and fragments of dreams. In one dream, a pack of wild, yellow-eyed dogs chase down a street, and in another, a giant, naked woman swims peacefully in the ocean. It seems as if the film will be about the separation of these things, the dissection of imagination from memory.
""Bashir,"" an animated film based on the real experiences of director Ari Folman during the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in the 1980s, is about the journey Folman finds himself on when he can't remember his past. Although his friends' memories are so vivid they haunt them in their sleep, Folman discovers that the only image he has of that time is of floating in the water near Beirut and walking into the city to see hundreds of veiled women with horrified expressions running through the streets.
As the film progresses, its dreamlike qualities fade and it becomes clear that ""Bashir"" is more of a documentary than anything else. Unlike inferior documentaries, however, the movie does not start out by asking moral questions, but by examining reality. This is where the dreams come in: As Folman's friend describes a few scenes where there are gaps in our memory, our mind invents images and details so that the distinction between truth and fiction dissolves over time, the same way sand castles dissolve with the tide.
What exactly happened during the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in the 1980s? Why can't Folman remember despite his own service in the Israeli military? These are the inquiries that ""Bashir"" ultimately pursues. The story expands from Folman's intimately personal story to the story of the massacre that occurred after Lebanon's leader Bashir was assassinated.
Although animation seems an unlikely medium for documenting the horrors of war, the surreal colors and images Folman uses to illustrate his tale only make ""Waltz with Bashir"" more honest. They portray the war not as a camera would, but as the soldiers and victims in Lebanon experienced it. At the same time, they make Folman's storytelling both poetic and intensely disturbing. The score for the film, written by Max Richter, is similarly simultaneously eerie and beautiful.
The only place where ""Bashir"" falters is its ending. Although it is clear that Folman wishes to focus on the people affected most directly by the massacre—its victims—audience members might feel themselves wanting to go back to Folman's personal story. It doesn't feel like a proper conclusion to a movie that started out exploring Folman's own lost experiences. Still, this might have been the way Folman intended it: an uneasy ending analogous to the continuing conflict in Lebanon.
Although ""Waltz with Bashir"" is mostly about truth rather than morality, it taunts viewers with thoughts about responsibility. It is designed to make people think about the nature of war, as well as human nature.
Grade: AB
