The greatest movie ever made..!

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

'Waltz with Bashir' is an animated documentary written and directed by Ari Folman. The film follows Folman in his search for his lost memories from the time when he served in the Israeli army during the traumatic Lebanon War of 1982.The first thing that I realised while watching 'Waltz with Bashir' is the fact that the animation was absolutely indispensable and this film could never have been made in any other possible way. This is because although this is at the basic level a documentary, but Folman takes a lot of artistic liberty to recreate the real life events and these recreations would never have been possible without the medium of animation. So the animation actually enhances and assists Folman's storytelling instead of sticking out as a gimmick. Thanks to the meticulous animation and the visual attention to detail, the whole film looks gorgeous. Every still shot can be framed and laminated to admire the beauty that is on show. The surreal imagery of the animation will stay with me for a long, long time. Folman uses the animation to juxtapose the beauty of the visuals with the devastating nature of the events during the war that the visuals were capturing. There are multiple haunting images and shots which are devastating to watch like certain scenes in 'Schindler's List'.The screenplay for the film and the subject is deep and thematically rich. Although Folman never shies away from the heavy nature of the subject matter, but Folman's style keeps the film vibrant and energetic throughout. Even viewers who generally tend to avoid war films will find this engrossing.The primary themes running through the film are the loss of innocence and guilt. We see Folman interview other men who like him served in the Lebanon War. We see these men recall the horrors of war that they had to witness when they were just young boys pushed into this hellish environment. Pretty much all the stories and interviews are interconnected. All the stories underline the madness and the futility of war. The stories also establish the mental struggles that these war veterans have had to deal with after coming back. The singular element that connects these mental issues of most of these men is the element of guilt. The guilt of having to kill human beings and also the guilt of surviving the war when many of their colleagues couldn't. Water bodies like the ocean play an important and symbolic role in many of their stories. Folman uses this aforementioned theme of guilt very craftily and uses it to connect the issues concerning the nation of Israel as a whole in the political scenario with the personal issues troubling the individuals covered in this film.Another very relevant theme dealt with by Ari Folman is the dynamic nature of memories. He explores and establishes that someone's memories can be fabricated by others or by himself/herself. A person can choose to completely forget certain aspects of his/her life because of certain subconscious assumptions. 'Waltz with Bashir' is an artistic masterpiece. Its substance and style go hand in hand and complement each other instead of one submerging the other. It is a political film that is ambitious in its style and becomes more than just about politics and war. It becomes a transcendental work about human emotions.

I can honestly say that I've never seen anything quite like WALTZ WITH BASHIR before. It's animated, but it's also a documentary which recounts director Ari Folman's attempt to reclaim long-suppressed memories of his involvement in the Lebanon War. The animation-documentary combination is an odd one, but nevertheless it works extraordinarily well with what the filmmakers seemed to be going for here. Although it mostly deals with firsthand war experiences, the larger theme is the subjective and fragile nature of memory, particularly of the traumatic and painful variety. I don't really want to get into any specifics because to do so would spoil the impact. All I'll say is that this film builds rather slowly as different people are interviewed and details are revealed, and the climax is sure to provoke an emotional reaction. As far as the quality of the film is concerned, the animation is very well-done. The movement is a little odd at times, but this is due to them either using cut-outs or roto-scoping (maybe a combination of both?). I'm fairly certain that the interview scenes were based on actual film footage, but I could be wrong. The sequences in the past are distinguished from the present by having this watercolor-like, washed-out, yellow-tinged and dingy look, while the scenes in the present have more natural-looking color. Back to thematic content, there is also some discussion about dreams and how they relate to memory. And of course, since this film deals with a war (and massacre) issues of morality come up, if in a more subtle way than you might think. What I took away from this is that the Lebanon War (and Palestinian massacre) is something that weighs heavy on the Israeli/Jewish conscience. We as human beings tend to block out things from our memories that we find offensive and overly traumatic, and there probably is some cognitive dissonance between the very real atrocities visited on Jews in the past and the atrocities that they have inflicted, or at least passively observed being inflicted, on others. It should go without saying that this film deals with some very heavy subject matter, but it's very important that we as human beings are able to confront and deal with all memories, even the ones we'd like to forget.

Waltz With Bashir (Vals Im Bashir) Is A Great Film. But Its Also A New Step In Filmmaking. Ari Folman makes a rare type of film that no one sees. Animation and Documentary combined. This is one of the most revolutionary films ever made because its a new way of telling a story and a new type of animation having some of the most realistic character models in a animated film to date.The film follows Folman as he interviews soldiers from The Deadly Lebanon War to get his memories from the war back as he was a soldier. The stories are shocking with each soldier telling his POV of the war. Folman is not trying to point fingers here. He is trying to show the effects of war like other films do (Das Boot, The Hurt Locker) and does a terrific job at it.I like that they are very careful not to make this film to colorful. Most of the colors in the film are black, Grey, green, brown and yellow. If the film had too many colors like red and blue and pink, then the film would look strange and odd. Without all these colors, the film looks Grimm and hell-like. Thats what Folman was trying to do here.I am so impressed by this film. It is sure to become one of the greatest films of the millennium.92/100 A-

This film was a big deal quite a few years ago now and pretty much since then I have told myself that I should watch it because it is supposed to be very good. Of course the subject matter made my lazy, stupid brain always take easier options when it came to picking from the queue and as such Waltz with Bashir has kicked around at the bottom of a drawer for quite some time now waiting to be watched. I finally got over myself this week and did so and I really didn't enjoy the experience although of course this is precisely how it should have been.The film is a tough watch as it reconstructs memories from the protagonist and his friends who were all involved in the Lebanon War in the late 80's. It starts out slowly and takes the form of an documentary where we have the characters relating their experiences back to us through interviews (although mostly they are discussions). This device is common in documentary films and are supported by stock footage of the events; in this case the delivery is different as the film is animated so we are able to see events as they occurred in the character's experience, not just representative footage. This works very well and allows for some really cinematic shots but also the best shot selection as anything is possible in animation. The film builds through the stories and generally it is as horrifying as it is engaging – it is a series of well told stories and it works very well because you listen even when it is difficult to do so.It isn't fun and it isn't easy but it is visually very well made and the whole structure and delivery of the film is engaging and brutal. It is a great war film, a great animation – just generally a great film.