The film Waltz with Bashir was created by Ari Folman was a soldier in the Israeli defence Forces on

duty in Lebanon. He was also the creator of the film, using his story to then create this film that
shows how band it was. It’s the second Israeli animated film to be made. Ari is a
screenwriter and film score composer. Waltz with Bashir is one of his most praised films of his
career. I t was realised in 2008 and written by Ari Folman as well.

Fig 1, Ari Folman

The film was made to show the lives of him and his Unit as they speak about what they witnessed in
Lebanese and the massacre that took the lives of hundreds and thousands of Palestinians. The film
to Ari was a graphic novel telling a story of his experience in the Israeli war. Folman finally
remembers that he was among the IDF men ordered to launch flares into the night sky over the
camps. According to Israel's own Kahan commission of inquiry, the "illumination" was requested by
the Phalangists to help them in their grisly work - though Folman is emphatic that at the time he and
the soldiers beside him "had no clue what was going on: we didn't know there was a massacre".
(Freedland, 2008)

The film is about a bunch of soldiers who tell their story of the war. It starts with a recurring dream
of being pursued by a pack of bloodthirsty dogs. And that the first part of this fil connects with parts
of the film in the end. The film sets out to show what happened and the emion it has had on may
soldiers and the residents of Lebanese. The source of this nightmare, dreamed by a friend of
documentary-maker Ari Folman, is quickly revealed: during the war, this friend shot dead 26
Lebanese mutts to stop them warning their masters about the encroaching IDF. But this isn’t the
mystery, and the friend isn’t the subject. Rather, the dream’s meaning precipitates a disquieting
realisation for Folman: he doesn’t have bad dreams. (Jolin,2008)

Fig 2, Waltz with Bashir

The film is upsetting as it shows the massacre of thousands of people at the end of the film. It also
shows a clip of the aftermath in real picture the dead bodies scattered on the floors left by the
people who shot them. It’s devastating the way that innocent people lost their lives. High-contrast
animation is the lifebreath of Folman’s film, appropriately moving the interviewees’ recollections
away from the talking-head/archive-footage standard and towards something gorgeously graphical
and soaringly inventive. Jolin, 2008)

The film was made in Flash, as they made the cut-out look to the extreme. Stylistically, a
documentary is ordinarily quite different from animation. But filmmaker Ari Folman has a different
point of view. “Who decides what is truer?” he says. “A digital image that you see on a screen that is
made out of pixels and dots and lines, or a drawn one, both of them are speaking in the same voice?
Who decides the video picture is more real than an artist who drew the images for four months?
(Kaufman, 2008)

The themes behind the style of media is to show that the film is a dream to the colours that are used
are toned down and calming to help give that effect of dreaming. Its not like a war production that is
in your face. This is a film that slowly gains interest the more in the film it gets. Then right at the end
it comes back to reality showing that it did really happen with live action section.

There were only eight animators in Israel qualified to do the job. It all started with the first shot in a
sound studio as a 90-minute video and then transferred to a storyboard. From there 2,300 original
illustrations were drawn based on the storyboard, this then formed the actual film scenes using
Flash animation, classic animation, and 3D technologies. This was all with the budget of $1.7 million.

The movie had received mixed reviews. But almost all the reviews mentioned it's unique modernity
and unusual design. Most of the negative reviews it has received were because of the left winged
political view it contains. The film has won many rewards for it betrayal of a soldier in the war. The
awards that it won the best foreign language film, Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Foreign
Language Film and many more.

Illustation

Fig 1, Ari Folman, (2008), Ari Folman [ONLINE]. Available

at: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ari-folman-write-direct-animated-665256 [Accessed
11 May 2018].

Fig 2, Ari Folman, (2008), Waltz with Bashir [ONLINE]. Available

at: https://scottsfilmwatch.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/waltz-with-bashir-2008.html [Accessed 11 May
2018].

Bibliography

Freedland, J (2008) Lest we forget. At: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/oct/25/waltz-with-

bashir-ari-folman (Accessed on 11/05/2018)

Jolin, D (2008) Waltz with Bashir Review. At: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/waltz-

bashir/review/ (Acessed on 11/05/2018)

Jolin, D (2008) Waltz with Bashir Review. At: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/waltz-

bashir/review/ (Acessed on 11/05/2018)
Kaufman, D (2008) How They Did It: Waltz With Bashi. At:
http://www.studiodaily.com/2008/12/how-they-did-it-waltz-with-bashir/