ShareThis"Waltz with Bashir," the front-runner for the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar, was shot on location in the mind of Ari Folman, a writer/director and former soldier.
As the filmmaker speaks with former brothers in arms, seeking to piece together suppressed memories of a massacre in which he took part, you swim through his subconsciousness, which is both a fascinating and terrifying place.
As Folman's memories -- colored by the most recent person he spoke with -- morph, mutate and come into focus, he plows through decades of mental scar tissue. At the heart are his grim recollections of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, part of Israel's 1982 war with Lebanon in which Israeli defense forces allowed Lebanese Christians to slaughter Palestinian civilian refugees.
Folman was 19 at the time, and at least for the purposes of the film had forgotten about the massacre before speaking to a friend who was bothered by a dream about 26 angry dogs. Folman sees symbolism in the dream that dares him to explore his own horrors.
With an art style reminiscent of "Waking Life," which includes computer graphics rotoscoped over live-action film footage, "Waltz with Bashir" traces thoughts and memories in the ways a documentary camera couldn't match.
Sometimes the imagery gets too esoteric to connect, particularly a bizarre fantasy in which a giant woman emerges from the sea to care for a scared soldier, but most of the time the film is breathtaking. Much of Folman's vision sears into your brain, including a sequence in which bullet-ridden horses limp in agony.
The title relates to a particularly jarring scene in which a soldier leaps out from behind cover for an impromptu dance, daring death to sweep him away. In the background are posters of Bachir (sometimes spelled "Bashir") Gemayel, the charismatic Lebanese president-elect who was assassinated in 1982.
Even though the words and themes ring true, it's the visual style that carries the day. The movie captures a dreamlike sense, with shadowy figures emerging from the void into ominous specters of fear and flies descending in jittery fashion to cover dead bodies.
There's no way you can call the experience of watching the film "pleasant," and in fact it's pretty much 90 minutes of pain. But also there's no budging from your seat.
3.5 stars out of 4
Rated: R for some disturbing images of atrocities, strong violence, brief nudity and a scene of graphic sexual content.
Voice cast: Ron Ben-Yishai, Ronny Dayag, Ari Folman.
Writer/director: Ari Folman.
Family call: Too graphic for kids.
Language: In Hebrew and German, with subtitles.
Running time: 90 minutes.
(Pvillarreal(at)azstarnet.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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