Memories of a Forgotton Genocide

“Waltz with Bashir” is director Ari Folman’s autobiographical documentary about a soldier’s pilgrimage to remember his service in the first Lebanese war. Countless interviews with former comrades help to jog Folman’s memory; slowly bits and pieces of his experiences surface, finally culminating in the monumental realization that he played an active role in the 1982 massacre in Sabra and Shatila.

Folman first realizes the void in his memory after an old friend approaches him about a reoccurring nightmare: 26 rabid black hounds racing through backstreets and alleyways. The soldier connects his dream to the 26 dogs he killed during the war, and soon after, Folman feels the need to uncover his own dark history. “Waltz with Bashir” is brilliantly animated and hauntingly true; Folman is not distracted by his medium and is able to present his story in full lurid detail.
Folman commented that “War is like an acid trip,” and coincidentally, so is his film. The use of color in “Waltz with Bashir” contributes to an over-arching mood of melancholy and guilt. Most scenes have a mustard yellow background, perhaps to symbolize the expanse of desert in which Beirut is cloaked. Also, the tawny backdrop gives the memory sequences an ambiance of decrepitude and decay, which is appropriate considering they have been suppressed for so long. For instance, everything in Folman’s nightmare is golden due to the light of flares exploding in the sky.  Therefore, he associates his memories, which comprise the greater part of the film, with the golden yellow color palette. He also uses music as a device to embellish his memories. In one scene, Israeli soldiers find themselves in a thick labyrinth of blossoming trees. Through the branches, they spot a young Lebanese boy with a rocket launcher taking aim, and as they shoot at him, evocative waltz-like music resounds, a reoccurring leitmotif throughout the film.
In the same way, Folman implements actual dialog from interviews he conducted to humanize his characters. One soldier said he lived “as if looking through an imaginary camera, taking shots of what [he thought] was worth keeping and discarding the rest.” The separation soldiers feel from the acts they commit is perfectly rendered in “Waltz with Bashir.” Folman’s own separation, his repression of the war, is only conquered at the end of the film when he realizes his involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacre. To symbolize this he includes the only real footage in the whole film: the lifeless bodies of the Palestinian victims.
“Waltz with Bashir” can be interpreted in many different ways. Some may take away a political message about the Middle East, while others may view it as an anit-war sentiment. However, Folman simply meant it to be a “therapeutic exercise of personal introspection;” and while we are left to ponder the atrocities of the first Lebanese war, he is sure to be clear-minded, relaxing, some place very far away.