| Waltz with Bashir | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Original title | ואלס עם באשיר |
| Directed by | Ari Folman |
| Written by | Ari Folman |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | Ari Folman |
| Edited by | Nili Feller |
| Music by | Max Richter |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 90 minutes[2] |
| Countries | |
| Language | Hebrew |
| Budget | $1.3 million[4] |
| Box office | $11.1 million[5] |
Waltz with Bashir (Hebrew:ואלס עם באשיר,translit. Vals Im Bashir) is a 2008adult animatedwardocumentary film written, produced, and directed byAri Folman. It depicts Folman's search for lost memories of his experience as a soldier during the1982 Lebanon War and theSabra and Shatila massacre.[6] It was the first Israeli feature-length animated film released theatrically sinceJoseph the Dreamer in 1962.
The filmpremiered at the2008 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for thePalme d'Or. Subsequently, it received wide acclaim from critics and audiences alike, with particular praise given to its use of visualized animation blended witharchival footage, as well as Folman's direction,Max Richter's score, and Nili Feller's editing, although it drew criticism from Arab countries. It is considered a groundbreaking achievement for adult animated films, setting it apart from typical animated films by tackling realistic and complex, mature themes with personal reflection that explores the psychological and physical damage of war.[7][8]
Waltz with Bashir garnered numerous accolades for the first time in an R-rated and non-English-language animated film including theGolden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film,[9] theCritics' Choice Movie Award for Best Foreign Language Film, theNational Society of Film Critics Award for Best Film,WGA'sBest Documentary Screenplay andDGA'sOutstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary, and theInternational Documentary Association Award for Best Feature Documentary, and a nomination ofAcademy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.[10]
In 2006,Ari Folman meets with Boaz, an old friend who tells Ari he is being haunted by a recurrent nightmare in which 26 rabidly angry dogs run toward his home through the streets ofTel Aviv, destroying everything in their way. Boaz explains that, during the1982 Lebanon War, the other soldiers in his unit knew he would not be able to kill a human, so they gave him the job of killing the dogs when they infiltrated a village at night so the animals would not alert the villagers to their presence, and he vividly remembers each of the 26 dogs he killed. Ari is surprised to find that, although he had also fought in the conflict during his stint as an infantry soldier in theIsrael Defense Forces, he recalls nothing of his deployment. Troubled by this, later that night he has a vision of his younger self and two other soldiers bathing at night in the Mediterranean just off the coast ofBeirut under the light of flares descending over the city. He recognizes the vision as being connected to theSabra and Shatila massacre, but he cannot remember enough to put this fragment in context.
Early the next morning, Ari rushes off to see a childhood friend, who is a professional therapist. His friend advises him to seek out others who were in Beirut at the time of the massacre to gain a better understanding of what happened and, hopefully, revive his own memories. The friend further explains that, given the nature of human memory, the vision might not be an exact record of what actually occurred, though it certainly relates to matters of great importance to Ari's inner world.
Ari interviews friends and other soldiers who fought in the war, as well as a psychologist specializing inPTSD and Israeli TV reporterRon Ben-Yishai, who was in Beirut covering the war when the massacre took place. Eventually, Ari's memories start to come back into focus, and he remembers that he "was in the second or third ring" of soldiers in the city, as his unit fired flares into the sky at night in support of the Israeli-alliedLebanese ChristianPhalangemilitia while they perpetrated the massacre in retaliation for theassassination ofBachir Gemayel. While he did not know what the militia was up to until after they were finished, he concludes that the holes in his memory were adefense mechanism, as his younger self had felt as responsible for the massacre as those who actually carried it out. The film ends with the animation dissolving into actual news footage of the aftermath of the massacre.
Being an animated film, all appearances are voice. Unless otherwise noted, the character is voiced by the real person being portrayed. For all but two of the characters, the animated characters were designed to appear similar to the real life person they portray.
The film takes its title from a scene in which Shmuel Frenkel, one of the interviewees and the commander of Folman's infantry unit at the time of the film's events, grabs ageneral purpose machine gun and "dances an insanewaltz" (to the tune ofChopin'sWaltz in C-sharp minor) amid heavy enemy fire on a Beirut street festooned with huge posters ofBashir Gemayel. The title also refers to Israel's short-lived political waltz with Bashir Gemayel as president of Lebanon.[11]
The film took four years to complete. It is unusual, as it is a feature-lengthdocumentary that, excluding one short segment of archival news footage at the end, consists entirely ofanimation. Stylistically, it combinesclassical music, 1980s music, realistic graphics, and surrealistic scenes together with illustrations similar tocomics.
The animation, with its dark hues representing the overall feel of the film, uses a unique style invented byYoni Goodman at the Bridgit Folman Film Gang studio in Israel. The technique is often confused withrotoscoping, an animation style in which the drawings are done over live footage, but is actually a combination ofAdobe Flash cutouts and classic animation.[12] Each drawing was sliced into hundreds of pieces that were moved in relation to one another to create the illusion of movement. The film was first constructed as a 90-minute video using live-action footage shot in a sound studio, and then turned intostoryboards andanimatics. From there, 2,300illustrations were drawn based on the storyboards, which were used to create the actual film scenes using Flash animation, classic animation, and 3D technologies.[13]
The comics medium, in particularJoe Sacco,[14] the novelsCatch-22,The Adventures of Wesley Jackson, andSlaughterhouse-Five,[15] and painterOtto Dix,[16] were mentioned by Folman and art directorDavid Polonsky as influences on the film. The film itself was adapted into a graphic novel in 2009.[17]
The score for the film was composed by minimalist electronic musicianMax Richter, while the featured songs are byOMD ("Enola Gay"),PiL ("This is Not a Love Song"), Navadey Haukaf (נוודי האוכף, or "Good Morning Lebanon", which was written for the film),HaClique ("Incubator"), andZeev Tene ("Beirut", which is a remake of theCake song "I Bombed Korea"). Some reviewers view the music as playing an active role in the film, commentating on events, rather than simply accompanying them.[18]
Waltz with Bashir opened in five theaters in the United States on 25 December 2008, grossing $50,021 in its first weekend. By the end of its run, on 14 May 2009, it had grossed $2,283,849 at the domestic box office. Overseas,Waltz earned $8,842,000, for a worldwide total of $11,125,849.[5]
Onreview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 97% "fresh" rating based on reviews from 152 critics, for an average rating of 8.4/10; the site's "critics consensus" states: "A wholly innovative, original, and vital history lesson, with pioneering animation,Waltz With Bashir delivers its message about the Middle East in a mesmerizing fashion."[19] On Metacritic, the film holds aweighted average score of 91/100 based on 33 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[20]
IndieWire named the film the tenth best of the year, based on the site's annual survey of 100 film critics. Xan Brooks ofThe Guardian called it "an extraordinary, harrowing, provocative picture."[21] The film was praised for "inventing a new cinematographic language" at theTokyo Filmex festival.[22] TheWorld Socialist Web Site's David Walsh described it as a "painfully honest" anti-war film and "one of the most extraordinary and haunting films at the Toronto film festival."[23] Despite the positive critical reception, the film was only moderately commercially successful in Israel itself.[6]
Several writers described the film as part of the Israeli "shooting and crying" tradition (where soldiers express remorse about their actions, but do not do anything concrete to remedy the situation), but Folman has disputed this.[24] Prof. Raya Morag has focused her analysis of the film as embodying an important stage in the rise of "perpetrator trauma".[25]
The film is banned in some Arab countries (including Lebanon), with the harshest criticism in Lebanon, as the film depicts a controversial period[vague] in Lebanon's history. A movement of bloggers, among them the Lebanese Inner Circle and +961, 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 the government's request to ban it, the film was privately screened inBeirut in January 2009 in front of 90 people.[26] Since then, many screenings have taken place, and unofficial copies of the film are also available in the country. Folman saw the screening as a source of great pride: "I was overwhelmed and excited. I wish I could have been there. I wish one day I'll be able to present the film myself in Beirut. For me, it will be the happiest day of my life."[27]
The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008, including:[28]
It was also ranked #34 inEmpire magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010,[31] and #4 inCurrent TV's "50 Documentaries to See Before You Die" in 2011.
Waltz with Bashir was the first animated film to receive a nomination for theAcademy Award forBest Foreign Language Film and the second to be nominated for theGolden Globe Award forBest Foreign Language Film (France'sPersepolis was the first a year prior).[32] It was also the first R-rated animated film to be considered for those honors. The film was the first Israeli winner of the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film sinceThe Policeman (1971), and the first documentary to win the award.[33] Although submitted for theAcademy Award for Best Animated Feature, it failed to be nominated, and it became ineligible for theAcademy Award for Documentary Feature when the academy announced a new rule stating that only documentaries with a qualifying run in both New York and Los Angeles by 31 August could be nominated.[34]
The film was included in theNational Board of Review's list of the Top Five Foreign Films of 2008. It received nominations forAnnie andBAFTA Awards for Best Animated Feature, but lost toKung Fu Panda andWALL-E, respectively. Folman won theWGA's Best Documentary Feature Screenplay award and theDGA's Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary award for his work on the film.
| Award | Category | Recipient(s) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Waltz with Bashir | Nominated |
| Animafest Zagreb | Grand Prize | Won | |
| Annie Awards | Best Animated Feature | Nominated | |
| Directing in an Animated Feature Production | Ari Folman | Nominated | |
| Writing in an Animated Feature Production | Nominated | ||
| Music in an Animated Feature Production | Max Richter | Nominated | |
| Asia Pacific Screen Awards | Best Animated Film | Waltz with Bashir | Won |
| BAFTA Awards | Best Film Not in the English Language | Nominated | |
| Best Animated Film | Nominated | ||
| Bodil Awards | Best Non-American Film | Won | |
| Boston Society of Film Critics Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Runner-up | |
| Best Animated Film | Runner-up | ||
| British Independent Film Awards | Best Foreign Independent Film | Won | |
| Broadcast Film Critics Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Won | |
| Best Animated Film | Nominated | ||
| Cannes Film Festival | Palme d'Or | Nominated | |
| César Awards | Best Foreign Film | Won | |
| Chicago Film Critics Association Awards | Best Animated Film | Nominated | |
| Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Nominated | |
| Best Documentary | Nominated | ||
| Directors Guild of America Awards | Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary | Ari Folman | Won |
| European Film Awards | Best Film | Waltz with Bashir | Nominated |
| Best Director | Ari Folman | Nominated | |
| Best Screenwriter | Nominated | ||
| Best Composer | Max Richter | Won | |
| Festival du Nouveau Cinéma | Daniel Langlois Innovation Award | Waltz with Bashir | Won |
| Gijón International Film Festival | Best Art Direction | Yoni Goodman | Won |
| Youth Jury, Feature | Waltz with Bashir | Won | |
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Won | |
| International Cinephile Society Awards | Best Film Not in the English Language | Won | |
| Best Animated Film | Won | ||
| Best Documentary | Won | ||
| International Documentary Association Awards | Feature Documentary | Won (tied withMan on Wire) | |
| International Film Music Critics Association Awards | Breakout Composer of the Year | Max Richter | Nominated |
| Best Original Score for an Animated Feature | Nominated | ||
| Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards | Best Animated Film | Waltz with Bashir | Won |
| Best Documentary/Non-Fiction Film | Runner-up | ||
| National Society of Film Critics Awards | Best Film | Won | |
| Ophir Awards | Best Film | Won | |
| Best Director | Ari Folman | Won | |
| Best Screenplay | Won | ||
| Best Cinematography | Yoni Goodman | Nominated | |
| Best Artistic Design | David Polonsky | Won | |
| Best Editing | Nili Feller | Won | |
| Best Sound Design | Aviv Aldema | Won | |
| Palić Film Festival | Golden Tower | Waltz with Bashir | Won |
| Satellite Awards | Best Animated or Mixed Media Film | Nominated | |
| Best Documentary Film | Nominated | ||
| Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival | Special Jury Prize | Won | |
| Tokyo Filmex | Grand Prize | Won | |
| Utah Film Critics Association Awards | Best Non-English Language Feature | Runner-up | |
| Best Documentary Feature | Runner-up | ||
| Visual Effects Society Awards | Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture | Yoni Goodman, Yael Nahlieli | Nominated |
| Writers Guild of America Awards | Best Documentary Feature Screenplay | Ari Folman | Won |
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | NSFC Award for Best Film 2008 | Succeeded by |