The former soldiers-now psychiatrists, judo masters, writers, business owners-recount details of the invasion that they believe are real, along with dream visions that seem no less real.

Much of the story is told through the flashbacks of Folman and his friends, pictured in the past as younger, thinner, but immediately recognizable versions of their present selves. As he speaks with each of them, Folman’s memories of the days leading up to the massacres become more and more clear, and he races towards the terrifying question of what role, if any, he played at Sabra and Shatila. Folman (who also wrote and starred in the film) realizes one evening, upon talking to an old friend, that he cannot remember his involvement in the 1982 invasion in order to fill in the blanks in his memory, Folman tracks down the men with whom he served and asks them to recount their experiences. The question of blame, however, is one that Folman largely avoids in favor of probing the psychological ramifications of the events-specifically, their effect on the Israeli soldiers who participated in the 1982 campaign, most of whom were only nineteen or twenty years old and were unprepared for the brutality that they would encounter. Also censured were the Israeli Defense Forces, who controlled the camps at the time, and, according to Israel’s 1983 Kahan Commission, should have foreseen the danger of a massacre and denied the Phalangists entry into the camps. Gemayel’s Phalangist supporters were blamed for the massacre, which was perpetrated under the pretense of ridding the refugee camps of Palestinian guerillas, but was understood to have been motivated by a desire to avenge Gemayel’s assassination. Gemayel’s murder, which occurred only days before he was to take office, set off the chain of events that resulted in the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in southern Lebanon.

The film, which was Israel’s submission to the foreign film category at this year’s Oscars, takes its name from a scene in which one of the young men in Folman’s unit, half mad with fear and adrenalin, fires rounds from his machine gun in a jaunty circular motion underneath building-sized posters of Bashir Gemayel-the Lebanese Phalangist party leader and Lebanese president-elect who was assassinated on September 14, 1982.

Based on Folman’s own experiences as a young soldier during Israel’s 1982 campaign in Lebanon-in particular, in the days leading up to the Sabra and Shatila massacres-the film focuses on the confusion, guilt, and trauma that stay with soldiers long after they come home from war. Waltz with Bashir: In the Aftermath of War Ilana Garon ▪ March 5, 2009ĪS AMBITIOUS as it is macabre, Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir introduces a new kind of film: an animated documentary.

Waltz with bashir a lebanon war story