One night in September 1982, Christian militia members invaded refugee camps in the heart of Beirut and massacred more than three thousand Palestinians while Israeli soldiers surrounded the area. Ari Folman was one of these soldiers. A fully animated documentary, WALTZ WITH BASHIR is Folman's attempt to decipher the horror of that night.
Co-production of Bridgit Folman Films Gang and ITVS International
The horrors of the massacres of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps near Beirut remain in the memories of those who experienced them in one form or another. Some of the surviving victims continue to live with the emotional and psychological traumas years after the killings and rapes. On the other hand, conscious memories of those who were present at the time may have repressed themselves. There is a need to go back and relive the memories years after the fact.
Ari Folman, an Israeli soldier at the time, was able to do that with the help of others who were present.
The following is from AFP:
CANNES: Repressed memories, the horrors of war and Israel's ugly role in a notorious Beirut refugee camp massacre are the themes of the Cannes film festival's first ever fully animated documentary. Ari Folman's anti-war movie "Waltz With Bashir," which is competing for the Palme d'Or, premiered here as Israelis celebrate the state's 60th year of existence and its neighbors in Lebanon struggle through a sectarian-tinged political crisis - whose roots can be traced to Israel's 34-day air and sea assault on the country in 2006.
Opening with thumping rock music as snarling dogs hurtle through city streets, the highly personal tale recounts the director's quest to fill the holes in his memory of his stint as a 19-year-old Israeli Army conscript.
He was baffled by why he couldn't remember much of his role in Israel's invasion of Lebanon, and the 1982 massacre of civilians, mostly Palestinians, by Israeli-backed Christian militiamen in the southern Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila.
So Folman, a long-time documentarian, tracks down nine people who were either with him at the time or were involved in the events, and then slowly pieces together his own actions. He then wrote a narrative script and got artists to transform the interviews into animation.
"There was no other way to do it," he said. "Otherwise it would have been pictures of middle-aged men going on about stories that happened 20 years ago." The result is a visually and emotionally gripping tale that brings to life harrowing and sometimes surreal memories of death, guilt and regret.
In the final 50 seconds, it ditches animation in favor of gruesome newsreel footage showing massacre victims' bodies piled up in courtyards and alleyways and wailing mourners wandering among the carnage.
When first shown after the massacre, these images caused outrage and protests across the world, including in Israel.
Folman said he decided to use the newsreel because he didn't want viewers coming out thinking they had seen a "cool, animated movie with cool drawings and music." "Thousands were killed," he said. "Sometimes you have to get it in the face. The massacre happened and you have to see it."
The wider context of Israel's 1982 invasion and occupation of Lebanon is not dealt with in the film. Nor does he discuss Israeli liability in the massacre, though a commission of inquiry found then-Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon indirectly responsible, forcing him to resign. Folman said he wanted to keep the film personal.
"It's about memory," he said. "I didn't have the urge to make any inquiry regarding who in the Israeli leadership or the leadership in the army knew that there was a massacre going on for three days. There was a federal inquiry for this thing. They did their job, 25 years ago."
Folman's movie is still an indictment of Israel's military and political conduct.
When the Christian militia moved into the refugee camps, vowing to weed out "terrorists," Israeli forces - among them Ari Folman - were positioned on the edges of the camps, taking no action whatsoever to stop what was clearly a days-long massacre of civilians. Sharon did nothing to stop it.
"Waltz With Bashir" reveals no new information about the Sabra and Shatila massacres, but its anti-war sentiments are likely to go down well with the Cannes Palme d'Or jury led by Sean Penn, a fierce critic of the US war in Iraq. Another anti-war documentary, Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," took the top prize here in 2004. - AFP
