Waltz With Bashir (2008 86min.) [Film4 1.20am tuesday &+1]
Award-winning animated documentary. Haunted by his combat experiences during the first Lebanon War in 1982, film-maker Ari Folman interviews old friends and Israeli comrades from that conflict, presenting the collective memories in a passionate bid for redemption.
As a young man film maker Ari Folman undertook his national service in the Israeli army ; during this time he took part in the 1982 war with Lebanon.
This is his reflection, memoir and documentation of that time.
Twenty five years after the event he tracked down family, friends and other former members of his batallion of conscripts and recorded their conversations as they discussed the events that they had been part of and the effects it had on their subsequent lives.
He's then animated these reminiscenses using brutal low-key black and white drawings (almost outline sketches) which suddenly burst into vivid colour at key points in the narrative.
He doesn't shy away from the traumatic events of the war either : carefully pulling together different voices to tell the story of the massacres at Sabra and Shatlia in an almost dispassionate way that serves to underline the brutality of what happened and the way that Folman and his comrades are still haunted by their memories.
It's a beautifully executed piece of work; part-documentary, part-folklore - that allows Folman to explore the way in which the events scarred a generation of young people on all sides of the divide.
Very highly recommended.
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