Review of Waltz with Bashir (2008) by Dave M — 11 Feb 2013

Frustrating. Frustrating in that for three quarters of the film I was into the style, imagery, and docu-narrative. In the last fifteen to twenty minutes of the film, all of that seemed trite and ruined.

Waltz pulls you in almost instantaneously with its music and animation as well as in discussions of dreams and memories. We journey through one man's struggle to regain a forgotten instance of horror in his life. When he ultimately reaches that goal the film takes a sudden nose dive into an animated, bland documentary which was both boring and depressing. Why in over an hour of watching this movie was I enthralled and then suddenly struggling to keep my eyelids open? The style had seemed to go out the window with the film's final act and message, making what I thought was cool trippy style, into sensationalizing an issue that was far too real and tragic. I felt dooped, or maybe I somehow missed the point.