Waltz With Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008): Israel | Germany | France

Reviewed by Darryl Walden.  Viewed at the AFI Film Festival, ArcLight Hollywood.

Initially, I had reservations about Waltz With Bashir because it had been crafted as an “animated” documentary.  Then came the opening scene of a pack of twenty-six (26) angry dogs racing through Tel Aviv which we soon discover is a re-occurring nightmare of an aggrieved former Israeli soldier.  Later, I understood the 26 angry dogs symbolically denoted the invasion of Lebanon by Israel in 1982 and ensuing occupation that lasted 26 months during which time the massacre of 3000 Palestinians in the respective refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila occurred.

The former soldier, while associating the nightmares with the massacre, remembers little or nothing of the massacre itself, and seeks the advice of Director Ari Folman, who, too served in the Israeli Army during the same military campaign.  Prior to this interaction, Folman claimed to have given it little thought over the years, yet, then starts to have re-occurring dreams himself.  Folman, like the former soldier, cannot reconstruct specific details about the massacre.  Neither can two other comrades that Folman eventually interviews.

Although  my doubts about whether the documentary had substance had dissipated, I now questioned the credibility of Folman’s screenwriting narrative.  Were these lapses in memory mere coincidental facets of shame or deliberate mechanisms to preserve their sanity or a combination of both and beyond?

In retrospect, Israel had entered into an alliance with Bashir Gamayel, leader of the Christian Militia to remove the PLO and secure its northern border.  Syria aligned itself with the PLO and wanted to install Suleiman Frangieh as President.  Bashir was elected, however was assassinated three weeks later.  In response to Bashir’s assassination, the official version is that Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister of Israel, acting without approval from Prime Minister Menachem Begin, facilitated Christian Militia transport into the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, both of which under Israeli Army control to perpetuate the massacre.

It is questionable as to whether Begin really did not know this atrocity would take place.  It is as equally conceivable that the White House may have turned a blind eye.  It is more certain that Ari Folman astutely picked animation as the creative conduit to address a personal and national shame.

Sabra and Shatila represents the Palestinian’s “Holocaust” for which the dogs of war still angrily bark so it is imperative that the United States begin to shape better middle eastern policies.  Waltz With Bashir is a must for all Americans wishing to understand some of the desperation that in time  triggered a 9/11.