Waltz with Bashir
| Waltz with Bashir | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical poster | |
| Directed by | Ari Folman |
| Written by | Ari Folman |
| Produced by | Ari Folman Serge Lalou Gerhard Meixner Yael Nahlieli Roman Paul |
| Starring | Ari Folman |
| Edited by | Nili Feller |
| Music by | Max Richter |
| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Classics Bridgit Folman Film Gang Les Films d'Ici Razor Film Produktion GmbH |
Release dates | May 13, 2008 (Cannes) June 5, 2008 (Israel) December 25, 2008 |
Running time | 86 min. |
| Countries | Israel Germany France United States |
| Language | Hebrew |
| Budget | $ 2,000,000 [1] |
| Box office | $ 8,107,724 |
Waltz with Bashir (Hebrew: ואלס עם באשיר - Vals Im Bashir) is a 2008 Israeli animated documentary film written and directed by Ari Folman. The film documents the attempts of Folman, a 1982 Lebanon War-veteran, to recover his lost memories of the events revolving around the Sabra and Shatila massacre.
This film and $9.99, also released in 2008, are the first Israeli animated feature-length films released in movie theaters. Waltz with Bashir premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival where it entered the competition for the Palme d'Or, and since then won and was nominated for many additional important awards while receiving wide acclaim from critics. It won a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a NSFC Award for Best Film, a César Award for Best Foreign Film and an IDA Award for Feature Documentary, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language and an Annie Award for Best Animated Feature.
Plot
In 1982, Ari Folman was a 19-year-old infantry soldier in the Israel Defense Forces. In 2006, he meets with a friend from his army service period, who tells him of the nightmares connected to his experiences from the 1982 Lebanon War. Folman is surprised to find out that he does not remember a thing from the same period. Later that night he has a vision from the night of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the reality of which he is unable to tell. In his memory, he and his soldier friends are bathing at night by the seaside in Beirut under the light of flares descending over the city. Folman rushes off to meet another friend from his army service, who advises him to discuss it with other people who were in Beirut at the same time in order to understand what happened there and to relive his own memory. The film follows Folman in his conversations with friends, a psychologist and the reporter Ron Ben-Yishai who was in Beirut at the same time.
Cast
- Ari Folman as himself, an Israeli filmmaker who recently finished his military reserve service. Some twenty years before, he served in the Israel Defense Forces during the 1982 Lebanon War.
- Miki Leon as Boaz Rein-Buskila, an Israeli 1982 Lebanon War-veteran accountant suffering from nightmares.
- Ori Sivan as himself, an Israeli filmmaker who previously co-directed two films with Folman and is his long-time friend.
- Yehezkel Lazarov as Carmi Cna'an, an Israeli 1982 Lebanon War-veteran who once was Folman's friend and now lives in the Netherlands.
- Ronny Dayag as himself, an Israeli 1982 Lebanon War-veteran high food engineer.
- Shmuel Frenkel as himself, an Israeli 1982 Lebanon War-veteran. During this war he was the commander of an infantry unit.
- Zahava Solomon as herself, an Israeli psychologist and researcher in the field of psychological trauma.
- Ron Ben-Yishai as himself, an Israeli journalist who was the first to cover the Sabra and Shatila massacre.
- Dror Harazi as himself, an Israeli 1982 Lebanon War-veteran. During this war he commanded a tank brigade stationed outside the Shatila refugee camp.
Title
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 a light machine gun and "dances an insane waltz" amid heavy enemy fire on a Beirut street festooned with huge posters of Bashir Gemayel.
Production
The film took four years to complete. It is unusual in it being a feature-length documentary made almost entirely by the means of animation. It combines classical music, 1980s music, realistic graphics and surrealistic scenes together with illustrations similar to comics. The only part of the film which wasn't made by means of animation is a short segment at the very end of the film which shows the documented results of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in a news archive footage.
The animation, unique with its dark hues representing the overall feel of the film, uses a unique style invented by Yoni Goodman at the Bridgit Folman Film Gang studio in Israel. The technique is often confused with rotoscoping, an animation style that uses drawings over live footage, but is actually a combination of Flash cutouts and classic animation. [2] Each drawing was sliced into hundreds of pieces which were moved in relation to one another, thus creating the illusion of movement. The film was first shot in a sound studio as a 90-minute video and then transferred to a storyboard. From there 2,300 original illustrations were drawn based on the storyboard, which together formed the actual film scenes using Flash animation, classic animation, and 3D technologies. [3]
The original soundtrack was composed by minimalist electronic musician Max Richter while the features songs are by OMD ("Enola Gay"), PiL ("This is Not a Love Song"), Navadei Haucaf ("Good Morning Lebanon", which is written for the movie), The Click ("Incubator") and Zeev Tene's remake of the Cake song "Korea," retitled "Beirut." Some critics have viewed the music as playing an active role as commentator on events instead of simple accompaniment.[4]
The graphic novel genre, in particular Joe Sacco, [5] the novels Catch-22, The Adventures of Wesley Jackson and Slaughterhouse-Five [6] and painter Otto Dix [7] were mentioned by Folman and art director David Polonsky as influences on the film.
Reception
Waltz with Bashir received highly positive reviews from film critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 96% of critics had given the film positive reviews, based upon 93 reviews.[8] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 90, based on 30 reviews. [9] indieWire named the film the tenth best of the year, based on the site's annual survey of 100 film critics. [10] Xan Brooks of The Guardian called it "an extraordinary, harrowing, provocative picture." [11] The film was praised for "inventing a new cinematographic language" at the Tokyo Filmex festival. [12] Israeli newspaper Haaretz correspondent Gideon Levy has stated that the film is "stylish, sophisticated, gifted and tasteful - but propaganda".[13]
Lebanon screening
Like all Israeli films, the film has been banned in most Arab countries, with the most harsh critics in Lebanon, as the movie depicts a vague and violent time in Lebanon's history. A movement of bloggers, among them the Lebanese Inner Circle, +961 and others have rebelled against the Lebanese government's ban of the movie, and have managed to get the movie seen by local Lebanese critics, in defiance of their government's request on banning it. The film was privately screened in January 2009 in Beirut in front of 90 people.[14] 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.[15]
Top ten lists
The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008.[16]
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Awards and nominations
Waltz with Bashir became the first animated film to have received a nomination for either an Academy Award or a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It also became first Israeli Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film winner since The Policeman (1971), and the first documentary film to win the award. [17] It was unsuccessfully submitted for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature nomination, and became ineligible for the Academy Award for Documentary Feature when the Academy announced its new rule to nominate only documentaries which have had a qualifying run in both New York and Los Angeles by August 31. [18] The film was also included in the National Board of Review's Top Foreign Films list. Ari Folman won the WGA's Best Documentary Feature Screenplay award and the DGA's Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary award for creating the film. Folman also received nominations for Annie Awards for writing and for directing in an animated feature production.
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See also
References
- ^ Ari Folman's journey into a heart of darkness, International Herald Tribune
- ^ [1], DG Design
- ^ Israeli filmmakers head to Cannes with animated documentary, Israel21c.org
- ^ "The Responsible Dream: On Waltz with Bashir". Bright Lights Film Journal. Retrieved 2009-2-6.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ "A Waltz and an Interview: Speaking with Waltz with Bashir Creator Ari Folman". cincity2000.com. Retrieved 2009-2-5.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ "Interview - Ari Folman". Eye Weekly. Retrieved 2009-2-5.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Interview : Waltz with Bashir". movies.ie. Retrieved 2009-2-5.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ "Waltz with Bashir Movie Reviews". Rotten Tomatoes. IGN Entertainment, Inc. Retrieved 2009-02-07.
- ^ "Waltz with Bashir (2008): Reviews". Metacritic. CNET Networks, Inc. Retrieved 2009-02-07.
- ^ Sasha Stone (2008-12-23). "Indiewire polls 100 critics". Retrieved February 12, 2009.
- ^ Brooks, Xan (2008-05-15). "Bring on the light relief". Cannes diary. The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-05-15.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "'Bashir' wins big at Tokyo Filmex". Variety. Retrieved February 4, 2009.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Gideon Levy / 'Antiwar' film Waltz with Bashir is nothing but charade". Haaretz. 21 January 2009.
- ^ "Israeli film on Lebanon War 'Waltz with Bashir' shown in Beirut". Haaretz. Retrieved 2009-01-30.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "'Waltz with Bashir' breaks barriers in Arab world". The Jerusalem Post. 2009-02-22. Retrieved 2009-02-23.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t "Metacritic: 2008 Film Critic Top Ten Lists". Metacritic. Retrieved January 11, 2009.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "'Waltz with Bashir' Makes Golden Globe History". documentary.org. Retrieved February 10, 2009.
- ^ "Bashir at Center of Oscar Controversy". Animation Magazine. Retrieved February 7, 2009.
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