Review of Waltz with Bashir (2008) by Josiah S — 08 Dec 2009

Let's get the most obvious aspect of this movie out of the way right off the bat.

Visually, this film is a beautiful sight to behold.

The art is Adobe Flash based, but handled with great care and consideration to detail, as well as color and flair.

The movie itself is in Hebrew (straight from Israel) and it mainly deals a great deal with war in Lebanon. This movie grabs your attention from the very start leaving you to absorb and gaze at the pretty imagery without wanting to blink. The editing never really leaves you with a dull moment and for better or worse the whole film courteously runs at approximately an hour and a half.

This was my main problem with the film:

It brings forth an important story and it does so with great style, but you best be somewhat familiar with the topic at hand or else the message is lost partly due to the amazing animation at hand.

I sadly can't really claim to know too much about conflicts in the Middle East and didn't have the easiest time following and taking in the whole scope of what was going on the whole time - and the dazzling effects didn't help any but I can neither fault nor take away points from the film due to my lack of comprehension.

Other than that, the soundtrack is eccentric yet appropriate. As a whole.

Very strongly recommended to most all, but especially to those who love indie films, war films, artistic films, and highly stylized films as this one is all of the above and then some.

Those unconvinced owe it to yourselves to at least check out the trailer!