The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

The BBC’s Razia Iqbal reports from the Cannes Film Festival where the Israeli animated film Waltz With Bashir is apparently the front runner for the prestigious Palme d’Or (no, it isn’t about a dancing doctor from Deep Space Nine). The film, created by director Ari Folman, draws on his own time having to perform national service in the Israeli armed forces in the 80s. The main focus of the film is on an appalling war crime, where hundreds of civilian refugees were slaughtered in the camps at Sabra and Shatila during the highly inappropriately named Operation Peace for Galilee, which saw Israeli forces attempt to occupy the Lebanon.

(a scene from Waltzing With Bashir by Ari Folman)

The actual massacre was carried out by a Lebanese Christian militia (obviously not one that paid much attention the central rules of Christianity), allied to Israel, while Israeli forces encircled the camps where many were murdered. Ari drew on his own memories and also those of other soldiers from the period, combining them into a mixture of traditional and 3-D animation, moving from personal recollections to surreal dream sequences which the Cannes critics have found compelling. Ari also explains how he feels about what he and other young conscripts were ordered to do by their leaders and his hopes that the film might help educate people that violence is not the answer:

“I think more than ever that I was used. We were all used – cynically used. You are 18 years old, they send you there, you go there on a plane. You land at the international airport in Beirut and you see people get killed for nothing. When you look at it now, the rage and the anger is even stronger than it used to be before I made the film…because I established family in the last five years and I have suddenly three kids… I look at them and they’re boys and think: ‘I will never let them do the same things I did.’ This film is one of the things in order to persuade them not to take part in any violence whatsoever,” Ari Folman.

It’s a noble aim (and so damned hard to stick to in the real world) and a fascinating-sounding film, which sounds like it is bound to appeal to those of us who read Exit Wounds and Palestine, while the notion of young and impressionable recruits having their patriotism and eagerness manipulated by cynical old leaders for their own agenda is, alas, a theme which has had relevance for many generations and indeed many of us would say still does right to this day. And coming in the year which marks the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of Israel and, sadly, not that long after yet more conflict across the Lebanon-Israeli border lead to numerous civilian deaths, it is bound to stir up controversy, not least in Israel itself (where it is to be premiered early next next month before going on general release) . Then again any work of art with a point to make usually will be controversial; let’s hope that at least any such controversy and the subsequent press attention may get some people thinking about the seemingly endless cycle of hate and death in the region and wondering if perhaps there isn’t a better way to manage their affairs. There’s a very good official site for Waltzing With Bashir which has numerous images, clips and segments of interviews with some of the former soldiers who took part; I hope this gets picked up for distribution in the UK in the not too distant future.