Waltz With Bashir

Waltz With Bashir isn’t so much a film as it is an experience of the surreal. Part biography, part war drama, and entirely animated, this labor of love from writer/director/star Ari Folman continues the trend of indie animated features and took it to a whole new level of acclaim in last year’s circuit of film festivals and red carpet events. Like Waking Life is to philosophy and Sita Sings the Blues is to love, Waltz With Bashir is to war. Waking Life is an obvious comparison, given their similar look in the rotoscope style (in which cells are drawn over live action), but it’s also unfair. Waltz does not use rotoscope, and instead has a pacing, style, and feel entirely of its own (it’s more like Sita Sings the Blues in that respect). We follow the director as he interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, a mission he was personally part of but cannot seem to recall. The amazing thing about the film is in how those memories unravel and how we’re meant to interact. As Ari tries to recall that time in his life, we join him in nightmare-like flashbacks and vivid retellings, resulting in almost ethereal experiences. Very much like Tim Robbins’ extended death rattle that is Jacob’s Ladder, which is to say it’s rather unsettling and wholly moving.

Waltz With Bashir • Nov. 19-22 • Davies Theatre, Davies Center, UW-Eau Claire campus • FREE • 836-3727 • www.uwec.edu/Activities/CampusFilms