siderite I am usually rating movies based on their genre. Since there are few animated documentaries around, this by itself would place Vals Im Bashir pretty high, but while I was trying to find flaws in the film, I realized that I am having difficulty doing that. Perhaps the only one that makes sense is that the animation is very basic, Adobe Flash like, other than that, it is something that touches on both factual and emotional level, without being heavy handed.To put it in perspective, it is the story of an Israeli man trying to understand why he forgot what happened during the war in Lebanon and his journey to remembering. It is not a propaganda film, but a personal documentary film of the director's journey: the man in the film.I can only recommend it.

brchthethird I can honestly say that I've never seen anything quite like WALTZ WITH BASHIR before. It's animated, but it's also a documentary which recounts director Ari Folman's attempt to reclaim long-suppressed memories of his involvement in the Lebanon War. The animation-documentary combination is an odd one, but nevertheless it works extraordinarily well with what the filmmakers seemed to be going for here. Although it mostly deals with firsthand war experiences, the larger theme is the subjective and fragile nature of memory, particularly of the traumatic and painful variety. I don't really want to get into any specifics because to do so would spoil the impact. All I'll say is that this film builds rather slowly as different people are interviewed and details are revealed, and the climax is sure to provoke an emotional reaction. As far as the quality of the film is concerned, the animation is very well-done. The movement is a little odd at times, but this is due to them either using cut-outs or roto-scoping (maybe a combination of both?). I'm fairly certain that the interview scenes were based on actual film footage, but I could be wrong. The sequences in the past are distinguished from the present by having this watercolor-like, washed-out, yellow-tinged and dingy look, while the scenes in the present have more natural-looking color. Back to thematic content, there is also some discussion about dreams and how they relate to memory. And of course, since this film deals with a war (and massacre) issues of morality come up, if in a more subtle way than you might think. What I took away from this is that the Lebanon War (and Palestinian massacre) is something that weighs heavy on the Israeli/Jewish conscience. We as human beings tend to block out things from our memories that we find offensive and overly traumatic, and there probably is some cognitive dissonance between the very real atrocities visited on Jews in the past and the atrocities that they have inflicted, or at least passively observed being inflicted, on others. It should go without saying that this film deals with some very heavy subject matter, but it's very important that we as human beings are able to confront and deal with all memories, even the ones we'd like to forget.

kely-campos1789 The psychological conflict of the war brilliantly explained I must say this animation is very similar to the story of a book. Achieve illustrate all without taste of war, human stupidity, feelings and small flashes of humanity that can go into a war.Walts with Bashir could be described as a well-narrated film without vices or propaganda.Quickly, the story grabs you and you live the torments of characters in each of the situations presented.This is a film that should be present in the election of a film lover.For me completely exceeded my expectations, so I evaluated with 10

Kartik One of the more brilliant films I have seen recently. It is the first animated documentary film I have seen and the montage is so effective that it made me wonder why is this not a more popular medium.The plot is kept gripping through the lens of the self-portrayal of the director who is searching for his lost memories of the war. It focuses on the psychology of the military men and the measures their minds resort to cope with the stress. The dealing of the actual massacre is not heavy handed and is approached in a balanced way, that leaves the audience with a burning desire to find out more about what transpired and how the collective failure of conscience of 3 groups of military men was brought about through systematic delegation.The auto-ethnographic angle helps focus on the non-political and a more humane angle of Sabra and Shatila massacre of 1982, which to me was the most novel aspect of the film that experiments with a lot of ideas of movie making and pushes the limits of cinema.Brilliantly pieced together with a comic-esque feel, Waltz with Bashir will stay in my head for the title sequence. A rash, callous and incomprehensibly inhuman act is described as a waltz. Accompanied with music that is befitting of the interpretation of the scene, it is among the best sequences in movies.