waltz with bashir

A gaunt, naked man rises out of the sea. A soldier adroitly waltzes across a Beirut street in a haze of gunfire. A carefree cadre of troops inches toward Lebanon in a tank against a backdrop of Israeli rock music. These are the surreal, haunting, sometimes bracingly violent scenes that comprise Waltz With Bashir, a stunning and provocative film by Israeli director Ari Folman. Waltz With Bashir is, on the surface, a film about the longstanding conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors. But fundamentally, it explores the malleability of memory and the blurred lines between reality, memory, dream and hallucination.

The film traces the story of Ari (voiced by Folman), who remembers nothing of his participation in the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. A conversation with another ex-soldier, Boaz, triggers eerie flashbacks of the massacres of refugees in Sabra and Shatila, but Ari cannot determine if his visions reflect his involvement. He sets off to find other soldiers from the invasion and piece together the story-hoping to understand his role and his potential culpability in the killing of refugees.

Folman masterfully blends animation and documentary, creating a piece that is part dream, part newsreel. Folman's subjects matter-of-factly narrate the action in voice overs that jar unsettlingly against the hazy, strangely colored images-some comic, some appalling-that illustrate their supposed memories. The soundtrack, featuring everything from Israeli war protest songs to Bach, only adds to the dreamlike mood. Waltz With Bashir expertly depicts the chaos and blurred reality of war and the human psyche.