Saturday, January 17, 2009
A Waltz You Shouldn't Miss
First, just watch the 'Waltz With Bashir' trailer, please...
This award-winning Israeli film is visually stunning, often beautiful. It's deeply personal and provocative. It speaks volumes about the nightmare of war in general, and, obliquely, the nightmare feedback loop that is the Israeli-Palestinian predicament. All delivered in 90 breathless, timeless minutes... It's a film and a documentary, as it follows the director's search to fill in wartime memories memory gaps from his tour of duty back in 1980s Lebanon where Israelis stood by silently - but closely - during a third-party massacre of Palestinians by Christians.
Let's talk visual. 'Waltz With Bashir' use 'rotoscopy' in which a movie is filmed and then animation is drawn over it, allowing the beauty of animation to coexist with the authenticity of real faces and real places. It's a perfect medium for flashbacks and dream sequences...
This film is also a reminder that - as with Vietnam - Lebanon, and Gaza.. and Iraq... a government makes war decisions which many of citizens may be against - or not understand...
I blame Israel for the current Gaza horror, but Israel nonetheless is a pluralistic society, not a solid block. This doesn't help the Gaza Palestinians much, but neither did my objections help the many civilians that died in Iraq and Vietnam (yes, 8-year-old Aaron actually objected, and wrote a letter to Lyndon Johnson...)
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