Waltz with Bashir is both an incredible screen animation and graphic novel depicting Ari Folman’s quest to rediscover his lost memories from the massacre of Palestinians in Beirut during 1982.

One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night, the same number of beasts. The two men conclude that there’s a connection between the dream and their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early eighties. Ari is surprised that he can’t remember a thing about that period of his life anymore.

Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images.

The Sabra and Shatila massacres are central to the plot development, which culminates in the unlocking of Ari’s lost memories about the horrific mass slaughter of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians carried out by the Lebanese Forces Christian militia group, following the assassination of Phalangist leader and president-elect Bashir Gemayel. It’s beautifully drawn and beautifully shot without losing the realism of the deeply disturbing subject matter or the difficulty Ari himself has in confronting his painful past.

There are a number of clips to watch on Youtube but given the book will only take you an hour to read (tops) there’s no excuse. And seriously the film is well worth it. But remember ‘behind those beautiful drawings and animation there were real people, they were slaughtered, they were killed. There were kids there, there were women there, there was thousands of people there’. Gives you something to think about eh?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 3:53 pm and is filed under Middle East and tagged as beirut, books, film, human rights, israel, palestine, refugees. Print this blog post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.