Waltz with Bashir

Waltz with Bashir - Animated documentary - Ari Folman - 2008

Waltz with Bashir is an autobiographical animated documentary by Ari Folman. An Israeli director, he meets up in a bar at night with a friend who is plagued by recurring nightmares: 26 dogs chasing him. 26 is the number of dogs he killed during the Lebanese civil war in the 80s. After this discussion, Ari Folman realizes that he is suffering from amnesia. He has no memory of his military service in Lebanon, some twenty years earlier, alongside the Israeli forces. Or almost, because shortly afterwards, an image comes back to him: he's a young soldier, bathing in the waters of Beirut with two of his comrades. The filmmaker then embarks on an initiatory journey in search of the sources of his memories, to discover the truth about this part of his life. From eyewitness account to eyewitness account, he discovers the experiences of his former comrades in war, enabling him to find the path to his own story. The deeper Ari Folman delves into his memory, the more images that have been erased resurface, notably those of the massacre of civilians at Sabra and Shatila in West Beirut by Christian Phalangist militias. This war story is a veritable visual experience, blending violence, poetry and war at the pace of the main character. It also underlines the feelings of the various characters and highlights the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.