Review of Waltz with Bashir (2008) by Zack B — 09 Nov 2010

Before I begin, I must note that this film and, to some degree, this review are not for those who don't know the history of the Lebanon/Israel War of the early '80s. The film expects its audience to know a lot more than most Americans are aware of.

I'm a little confused about this film. Sure: the very idea of an animated documentary is rather confusing, but the inventiveness of the animation - not the quality, which seems jilting, like it was made with those flip books I made in grade school - soon dispelled my confusion at this aspect of the film. Rather, I'm confused about the film's overall point especially in this socio-political climate. The film's central emotion seems to be guilt. The documentarian/main character searches for testimonials to fill in his missing memory about the massacres of Sabra and Shantila, suspecting his involvement. In a key scene, for me, his friend and psychoanalyst claims that he is motivated to conduct this search because his parents were in the concentration camps. And in the course of his investigation, we get war stories that never glorify armed combat - the old "war is hell" thesis. But the film's big reveal is well-known to historians: the Christian Kataeb Party was directly responsible, while the Israelis basically watched the door.

So here is my confusion: yes, Folman and Israel have some culpability, especially because some Palestinian reports suggest Israelis troops had a more direct role in the massacre than the film suggests, and the film implies this; we even get scenes that lampoon high-ranking Israeli military personnel, and the film states that the Israeli command chain knew about and ignored the massacres in progress. But if the climax of the film reveals the real responsibility rests with the Lebanese, then isn't the film's central point to excuse Israel?

I don't demand that Waltz with Bashir [sic] reduce complex political realities to overly simplistic, Hollywood cliches, but in light of the blight of the Palestinian people and the horrors that they've had to endure before, during, and after the Lebanese War of the '80s, I would think that the balance would be tipped more toward the Israeli responsibility and less toward the Bachir's influence. The blithe mentions of car bombs and concentration camps do little to exonerate Israeli guilt and more to excuse it.