Waltz with Bashir, Nazi Germany, and Israel
If Rob Reiner gave us a “rockumentary”/”mockumentary” with his famous This is Spinal Tap, the Israeli director Ari Folman has now created a new genre of “documation” with his Academy Award-nominated animated film Waltz with Bashir. Whereas Reiner’s intentions were clearly satirical, however, and his film made no pretense to being factual, Folman’s intentions are deadly serious and his film aspires to get at a truth that is somehow even “deeper” than the mere facts. That “deep truth,” namely, is the responsibility of Israel for the infamous Sabra and Shatila massacre during the 1982 Lebanon War.
Folman — in animated form, of course — is the star of his own film. He was a soldier in the Israeli Army during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. He does not recall participating in any war crimes and he specifically does not recall having anything to do with Sabra and Shatila. The perpetrators of the massacre in the Palestinian refugee camps are known, in any case, to have been Lebanese Christian forces. But Folman does have an enigmatic dream placing him on a beach not far from the camps at the time of the massacre. His lack of recollections from the war troubles him and he sets out to fill the gap by talking with other persons who were present in one capacity or another during the invasion. In the manner of someone attempting to recapture repressed childhood memories through psychoanalysis, the entire exercise is thus premised on the assumption that Israel was indeed somehow complicit in the massacre. (In the only scene that adds a touch of ambiguity to the film, however, a psychologist tells Folman that experimental subjects can be readily induced to recall events that never in fact occurred.)
As concerns Folman’s personal involvement, the results of his efforts at self-examination are notably meager. In the end, he manages merely to “recollect” that he was present on a rooftop while Israeli troops set off flares in the vicinity of Sabra and Shatila, an action that seems to him to have been designed to aid the killers.
Along the way, however, the viewer is served up a veritable orgy of Israeli violence and vulgarity. Israeli soldiers are shown firing indiscriminately into fields and crushing civilian vehicles under their tanks. They are depicted carousing on a military vessel headed for the Lebanese coast (a kind of “love boat,” one character says) and cavorting on Lebanese beaches. They are depicted slaughtering defenseless animals and blowing holes in what appear to be residential structures. “I bombed Beirut every day,” the rock soundtrack blares, “Sure we kill some innocent along the way.” During the “I bombed Beirut” sequence, amidst the scattershot images of varied carnage, Ariel Sharon is depicted sitting down to a breakfast of beef and no less than five eggs, while holding a knife menacingly in his hand. Sharon was the Israeli minister of defense at the time of the Lebanon invasion.
In what may be the single scene most certain to inflame anti-Israeli — if not indeed outright anti-Semitic — prejudice, a portly unshaven Israeli officer is seen slouched half-undressed in an armchair while watching a porn video in an occupied villa on the outskirts of Beirut. (For lord knows what reason, the soundtrack of the porn film is in German.) By virtue of physiognomy and theme, the image is creepily reminiscent of the anti-Semitic caricatures featured in Julius Streicher’s infamous Nazi propaganda sheet Der Stürmer. (See here for an example. The cartoon is titled “Jewish Culture.” It shows a svelte “Aryan” couple contemplating nature, while the Stürmer cartoonist’s stock “fat Jew,” seen in profile, attends a porn flick titled The Sweet Sins.)
All of the above is, of course, neither documentary nor “documation.” It is quite simply fiction — even if Folman might want to plead that the scenes are somehow based on “recovered” memories.
leftists, whether they are american or israeli, brits or swedes, have no belief in nationalism, democracy, the special nature of their own culture, or protecting and defending either. they are essentially without homelands and love of country. leftists live in an ideology and if there were room enough all would be buried at sea.
we have to understand how they think and that it is very different from our own sense of how the world works.
if a person, any person, cannot differentiate between protecting and defending israel and the scourge of hitler’s nazism, and if it is necessary to explain it, this merely proves the point.
it is a nation independent of the united states, despite the propoganda that twists this truth around. indeed, the united states has held israel back militarily preventing it from its own protection. it is a diverse democracy, where every color and virtually every culture is represented, from the deepest ebony to the fairest blonde, where 70 languages are spoken and where arabs have seats at the knesset and arabs vote in israel’s elections, where jerusalem is an open city only because the jews opened it up, and where intelligent thinking, knowledge that comes from rigorous education, and progress in science has made them the center of world technology and a leader in medical discoveries.
just as the Ibo tribe of africa should have been lauded and held up as a symbol of how productive it is possible to become, and were hated and discriminated against instead, jews are savaged in the same way. to be better, is the crime, to show this as attainable is an affront in a leftist world.
leftists, think of civilization in terms of the lowest common demoninator. that is their highest purpose and they utilize all means to equalize humanity at this low point. simply`, we should understand with the ultimate clarity that if israel falls, we, who value Western Civilization, all fall down.
When I first heard that an Israeli film won an award, I couldn’t believe it. Generally the media never recognizes anything positive about Israel, so when I read what this film was all about, then the award became perfectly clear. Just like National Public Radio–which always runs sympathetic segments about the poor Palestinians or poor Arabs in Israel, but never about Israeli Jews–the visual media does the same thing. I’d like to see some push back, some media savvy on the part of the Israelis. Palestinian propaganda always gets coverage while the Israeli point of view is often dismissed. And most news anchors are incredibly ignorant about history; they just let the Arabs prattle on without challenging any statements, particularly about the “occupation.” It’s never clarified that this is just a buzzword for the fact that Jews have survived all efforts to destroy them.
The film is actually about war and the barbarity it induces in its participants. It could have been about ANY war. it’s actually quite brilliant and desperately moving.
Regarding:
3. CrumbleKid:
The film is actually about war and the barbarity it induces in its participants. It could have been about ANY war. it’s actually quite brilliant and desperately moving.
I would say it is, simply, desperate.
Another self-loathing, jino fartist makes a film excoriating Israel, is applauded by useful idiots for sand-nazis, and wins an award.
In other news, the sun rose in the East today…
Weirdly, Israel is full of leftist idiots.
War is great, it brings out the best in people, let’s start another one!
Horace you can count on it, repeating history has proven to be predictable.
To Aylios #6:
I am Israeli and not a leftist.
This review is full of half-truths and distortions. The film is not just about recovering Ari Folman’s lost memories but about the war experiences of the people he interviewed. Because two of them did not want to use their actual names or record their interviews does not diminish from their testimonies.
Ariel Sharon was not a Nazi and Israeli soldiers did not participate in the massacre in Sabra and Shatilla (plainly shown in the film), but the fact that he and some members of the Israeli command in Beirut knew what was happening and did nothing to stop it for several days was a crime and those responsible were investigated and punished.
Waltz with Bashir was first funded by Israel Channel 8 TV (documentary station) but they only gave 120 thousand dollars, Folman had to turn to outside funding since the film ended up costing 2 million to produce and 4 years. The writer makes it look like the film came out the way it did because of who funded it.
My only criticism of the film is it didn’t emphasize enough why Israel went into Lebanon to begin with in 1982. But it was told through the eyes of a 19 year old kid, who just found himself in war and the story started there.
It’s a brilliant film from many standpoints and I am proud of Israelis for making it, we can look at ourselves critically and that testifies to our morality. The Christian Lebanese massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camp was Nazi-like and should be recalled.
I have seen the film and am inclined to agree with Barbara. This is not the only artistic work by an Israeli that I have come into contact with that questions Israeli actions during the Lebanese war. It is in the same genre as those films by Americans that criticise America’s role in the war in Vietnam, Iraq etc, and they range across the scale from Right to Left wing.
I found the film very moving and the “comic strip” style is brilliantly executed. It is generally anti-war in scope not anti-Israel. Israel is an open and self-critical society, in stark contrast to Palestinian society – criticism of Palestinian authorities by Palestinians is dangerous to their health! Lebanon is not much better and it has always struck me as an oxymoron – associating the Phalangists with the name of Jesus Christ.
The porn scene is the one part of the film that I felt jarred; but are we to assume that Israeli soldiers have never ransacked the cities they have taken or been vulnerable to porn? Actually the scene is quite sad; the soldier’s reaction is evidence of an unbalanced mind. I am currently reading Ron Leshem’s (an Israeli) novel “Beaufort” (won Israel’s top literary award for 2006) which deals with the same war and the teenage male soldiers’ language is crude and their chief preoccupation is sex. The military actions they are involved in are pointless and futile. The blurb says the novel has been hailed by the soldiers who served in the Lebanon war as “the true voice of that sobering period”.
All nations have to question their country’s actions in war and not let wrongdoing go unpunished e.g. Australia imprisoned “enemy aliens” during World War II and they were not all POWs; some were locals of German, Italian and Japanese origin.
I did not see the movie yet. I would like to point out that the Israeli army responsabilities at Sabra and Chatila were recognised by the Israeli government’s own Kahan Commission, which found Israel indirectly responsible for the massacre, and Ariel Sharon personally responsible for “ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge” and for “not taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed”. Sharon was forced to resign from the post of defense minister.
For some reason, the very Nazi like massacre of Christians at Damour never gets mentioned; http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/67476
More about Damour: funny, I don’t recall that Yassir Arafat was ever tried for his involvement in that: http://www.israelforum.com/board/archive/index.php/t-2009.html
In part, this is a particularly Jewish/Israeli problem, one which Folman does not shy away from: Is a culture that has experienced genocide more likely to recognize it the next time it appears? Not necessarily, says Folman, speaking personally again.
“For us who grew up in those kinds of families, are we more ready to listen to those kinds of stories? On the contrary, I think it is harder. The Holocaust was like a one-time experience in the history of humankind for us. We are not ready for anything else.”
But Folman is adamant in insisting that there are no easy comparisons to be made between the Nazi murder of the Jews and the massacre at Sabra and Shatilla. “There is no comparison, there can be no comparison. But mass murder is mass murder, and it is something that the imagination cannot believe or accept, even while it is happening.”
War is horror beyond human comprehension: This is the theme of “Waltz With Bashir.”
“This film,” insisted Folman, “could have been made by an ex-American soldier in Vietnam, a Russian in Afghanistan, an American today in Iraq. … It could have been made by anyone who wakes up one morning and finds himself hundreds of kilometers away from home, in a remote city that has nothing to do with him or his life, nothing whatsoever. He doesn’t know what he’s doing there, he is terrified, and he has no clue.”
from: http://www.alternet.org/movies/116016/%27waltz_with_bashir%27_makes_war_look_stupid/?page=2
Is a culture that experienced genocide more likely to recognize it? Well, first, actual genocide needs to occur. The population of Gaza is rising. Populations do not typically rise during a genocide: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090215/wl_mideast_afp/mideastpalestinianpopulationgaza
Far as I’m concerned, the world in general is unable to recognize genocide, as witness Darfur, Rwanda, Tibet, Cambodia and the endless whitewashing of Russia, and the gulags: it only gets upset about “genocide”, “atrocities” and the like, if said “genocide” can somehow be blamed on Israel, and it can be used to whomp up sympathy for the beloved Palestinian uber-victim.
War can be a horror. There are other horrible things too.
The question asked is whether standing by while evil is perpetrated is as bad as perpetrating it. The reason the Holocaust and Nazis are a thread running through it is that Israelis have more reason than most to be aware that standing by while evil is perpetrated is wrong. The film is not about any one event, nor is it an accusation or defense of any group of people. It is about war, atrocity, and the human tendancy to not want to know and not risk oneself. It is a deeply personal examination of these themes and therefore the events that happened to the filmmaker are those he chooses to use to examine them. Anyone who argues this as being about a specific event and making a specific accusation has missed the point; sorry blogging dude. Step it up a notch. The accusation the filmmaker is making is not against Israel; it’s against himself.
What a pathetic excuse for a review. From the author’s history, it’s clear that he considers “Germans”, whom he mentions indiscriminately (something I personally take offense to), as well as Arabs, are the only human beings capable of war crimes.
Mr. Rosenthal simply can’t bring himself to believe that Israel can ever do anything right, even if the movie is predicated upon true stories of war veterans. In discrediting them, Mr. Rosenthal is insulting Israel and is being himself anti-semitic.
I also find it hypocritical, nay disingenuous, that this scumbag of a writer dared to LIE about the Nazi parallel. The movie DID NOT suggest that the IDF were Nazis (although there is a lot of evidence elsewhere, involving settlers in particular in other massacres that proves otherwise). Rather, the word was mentioned only twice, coming up in two separate conversations…the movie therefore didn’t assert the parallel in any way. Even if the author’s twisted mind saw it this way, he AGAIN missed the point.
As the Kahan commission pointed out, the IDF enabled the Phalange terrorists to commit this Nazi-like atrocity against unarmed civilians…the parallel was again based on the image of Phalange trucks hoarding away scores of civilians, like the trains to Auschwitz, to “camps”, and then coming back empty. The parallel is inescapable. In no way does Folman assert in the documentary that 6 Palestinians were gassed.
Also, the movie was NOT funded by Europe until after Chanel 8 ran out of funds to give to Folman who saw that his groundbreaking idea to have a feature length animated film would cost a shitload more than the 120 grand he was initially given.
So Mr. Rosenthal, shame on you for your preverications and lies…you’re a no-body in the film critic world, seeing as though your “review” is in none of the major aggregates such as Metacritic (where Waltz with Bashir got 91%, Universal Acclaim) and Rotten Tomatoes (97%).
What a bizarre, paranoid and vitriolic rant on the part of Mr. Rosenthal. The efforts gone to to try and discredit this film are startling in their hollowness and frankly repulsive ad hominem attacks. However, I take some comfort in the fact that the only people who ever attempt to write such brain dead emotionally driven nonsense exist in this strange American dream world. There is a reason why the United States appears to the rest of the world as a country of red necked closet Nazis despite the many reasonable voices of people like the previous poster Alex M