Waltz With Bashir Essay

How does the animation style used by Folman allow him to express his interviews and memories in a way to educate an audience?

The opening scene of the film Waltz with Bashir shows twenty-six salivating, growling dogs, followed by pandemonium, running angrily through a city. Director and main character, Ari Folman, uses a unique animation style in order to bring the interviews and memories to life. The animation is very reminiscent of the style used for graphic novels, this allows the repressed memories, specifically those from the Sabra and Shatila massacre to be shown. In this opening scene, the animation vividly brings Folman’s friend, Boaz Buskila’s, nightmare to life. Much of Folman’s memory from the First Lebanon War, in which he fought for Israel, is incomplete. Seeking to discover what had happened and why he could not remember, he met with old friends and a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder expert and produced an animated documentary with the results. As the film progresses, many stories are told to Folman and many memories are relived. The animation …show more content…
Folman’s dream begins with him bathing naked in the water outside of Beirut with his comrades under the glowing light of the flares, he then slowly wades to the shore. They begin to put on their uniforms and guns and walk into the city. As they walk, Folman is confronted by a mass of citizens fleeing out. He is watching the horror and sorrow on their faces. Personally involved with the First Lebanon war and specifically a witness to the unconscionable Sabra and Shatila massacre, Folman did not know how to revisit these memories in a not traumatic way. He discovered this through interviews and in the end an animated documentary. Folman attempts to educate and audience at the same time that he provokes memories in soldiers and people that were there to help them