Waltz with Bashir (2008, Director: Ari Folman): I think calling this an animated documentary might be stretching it a bit, but director Ari Folman has created something really interesting. He’s used animation to go where documentary filmmaking hasn’t been able to take us before, into the memories, dreams and nightmares of its subjects. The film starts when Ari (looking uncannily like Italian film diarist Nanni Morretti) shares a drink with an old army buddy who describes his recurring nightmare of being chased by 28 dogs. After finding out that this relates to specific incidents from the 1982 Lebanon war, we discover that Ari Folman has little recollection of his participation in that conflict. But after this meeting, he begins having a strange recurring dream and after consulting a psychologist friend, he decides he needs to try to figure out why his memory seems blocked.
As he interviews other participants in the war, he begins to piece together his part in a larger narrative, that of Israeli compliance in the massacre of thousands of Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut. “Christian” Phalangist militias entered the camps and massacred men, women and children for three horrific days, killing more than 3,000. Despite the militias’ stated aim of rooting out Palestinian fighters, the vast majority of these fighters had been evacuated weeks before. The bloodbath was widely seen as revenge for the assassination of the Phalangists’ leader, the recently-elected President Bashir Gemayel. Although Folman’s memory is never completely reliable, he seems to remember his army unit firing flares so that the militias could carry out their work at night.
The most shocking moment of the film comes right at the end, when the animation suddenly snaps into real-life video footage of the carnage, leaving a dramatic impression. Despite the unreliability of memory, and the nature of guilt (both survivor guilt and that of someone who killed other human beings) and its effect on the mind, this footage is evidence of a real atrocity, and Folman and his comrades have had to live with their part in this tragedy for more than twenty years. It’s no wonder that he used animation; it’s the perfect way to recreate nightmares.
Unfortunately, the director flew home after the film’s opening screening and wasn’t present for a Q&A.
Official site of the film
Trailer
(8/10)
Tagged as:
#tiff08,
guilt,
israel,
lebanon,
memory,
palestine,
war
The Danish PoetTonight’s programme consisted of award-winning shorts released in 2006, and just watching them one after another led me to a few conclusions about short films in general. To compare them to written works, they’re a bit like poems to a feature film’s novel. And to compare to spoken word, they’re like jokes as opposed to sagas. With such a short amount of time, they need to make their points quickly, so there is often a high “cleverness” factor and the endings often feel like the punch line of a joke. This can work well, but a film that stands out is one that doesn’t make these tropes so obvious. Here, in my order of enjoyment, are tonight’s selections:
- The Danish Poet (Canada/Norway, 2006): With lovely narration from Liv Ullmann, this story felt the most organic and the least gimmicky. Even though there is a sort of punchline “payoff” at the end, it’s telegraphed early enough to set us down gently. The whimsical animation style and always-great use of animated (but non-speaking) animals made this a worthy Oscar-winner this year. Check out the film’s web site. (9/10)
- Dreams and Desires — Family Ties (UK, 2006): Another animated short, this one cleverly used animated sketches to simulate a wedding video filmed by the oddly cinephilic Beryl, a large woman of grandmotherly vintage. Her attempts to film the disastrous occasion in the styles of famous directors from Eistenstein to Riefenstahl, all the while keeping up a steady stream-of-consciousness narration, keeps this one rollicking along, despite the nearly impenetrable accents. (9/10)
- Tanghi Argentini (Belgium, 2006): This is a charming tale of an office drone who just might be an angel. André needs to learn to tango in two weeks so he can meet his Internet crush, so he turns to his colleague Frans to help teach him to dance. Will love bloom? (8/10)
- Contact (Raak) (Netherlands, 2006): Three characters paths cross again and again in this cleverly-edited short. There’s that word “clever” again. (7/10)
- The Substitute (Il Supplente) (Italy, 2006): A class of high-school students is terrorized by a Scott Thompson (ex-Kids in the Hall) lookalike, who then gets his comeuppance. Funny in an odd sort of way. (7/10)
- Make A Wish (Atmenah) (USA, 2006): A straightforward, almost documentary-like tale of a young girl who will go to any lengths to get a special birthday cake. Only it’s set in the West Bank. The filmmaking is pretty rudimentary and there’s a bit of a (tragic) punchline at the end. (6/10)
- Imagine This (Australia/Ireland, 2006): Sometimes a short should also be a “small.” Using found internet footage to make George W. Bush “sing” John Lennon’s “Imagine” was a pretty funny idea. But it really shouldn’t have made it off the YouTube site. (5/10)
Tagged as:
animation,
belgium,
canada,
denmark,
italy,
netherlands,
norway,
palestine,
shorts,
uk,
worldwideshortfilmfest
Raised To Be Heroes (Canada, 2005, Director: Jack Silberman, 53 minutes): A portrait of several “refuseniks,” Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories, this film revealed a side of Israeli society that we rarely get to see on the nightly news. Not exactly pacifists, these men simply think that their role in the Israeli Defence Forces is to defend Israel, and that what they’re being asked to do has nothing to do with that role. In fact, many of them say they are being asked to commit war crimes against civilians on a regular basis, and so they have decided to face the consequences of disobeying their orders. For many of them, it involves long stretches in military prisons, but as one reserve officer said, he felt his 21 days in military prison did more to serve his country than all his years of obeying his superiors.
The film skilfully weaved bits of Israel’s history into the narrative so we got a bit of context for the men’s protests, and although it’s dangerous to simplify the political situation in the Middle East, for these men, their decision reflects their real conviction that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza are morally wrong. Unfortunately, the director was ill and couldn’t attend the screening, so while there was a short Q&A, I think it could have been more interesting had the director been in attendance. The film did bring up important issues surrounding the (potential) conflicts between duty and morality.
More information on the film from the National Film Board of Canada
(9/10)
EYE Weekly: *** (out of 5) (review)
Tagged as:
#hotdocs06,
Documentaries,
Hot Docs,
israel,
palestine
