In appearance he resembles the The Hunt for Red October-era Sean Connery, far removed from the gangly teenager he depicts himself as in Waltz's many flashbacks to wartime Beirut. Today Folman is a handsome 45-year-old with a salt and pepper beard.
And thanks to strong critical buzz, Folman's film stands a good chance of getting nominated. For the first time, two Israeli animated features have qualified for Oscar consideration in the same year: Waltz with Bashir and $9.99. The movie's overall look and feel is dreamlike in its own right, thanks to a unique combination of conventional, Flash and CG animation together with a carefully chosen color palette and bold character design. The animated feature is replete with phantasmagorical imagery and surreal dream sequences the film opens with an unsettling depiction of his friend's canine nightmare.
The result is Waltz with Bashir, a Citizen Kane-style recounting of Folman's search and what he discovered. However, unlike others, Folman turned to animation, the most unreal form of filmmaking - but one perfectly suited to fill in the missing pieces of an emotional jigsaw puzzle. Just as several other contemporary documentarians have done, Folman set out on a quest for the truth, with himself on camera as the protagonist. The two realized neither could remember the details of their time in Beirut - and that the friend's dream of dogs was connected to whatever they had witnessed in 1982. The man described a recurring dream of being pursued by a pack of bloodthirsty dogs. Years later, Folman reunited with one of his fellow soldiers. Ultimately, Israel's defense minister was forced to resign - a disgrace that did not prevent him from becoming the country's prime minister 20 years later.įolman and his army friends went on with their lives Folman entered Israel's entertainment industry, writing and directing films and TV shows, including Be Tipul, a dramatic series that would be remade in the U.S. In its aftermath, several Israeli leaders were accused of looking the other way and allowing the massacre to take place. The massacre took the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of Palestinians. Only 19 at the time, Folman and his unit were stationed on the outskirts of Beirut's Sabra-Shatila refugee camp - while inside, a Lebanese faction was taking bloody revenge on the camp's Palestinian residents for the assassination of Bashir Gemayel, the faction's leader. In 1982, Ari Folman was a soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces on duty in Lebanon, part of the army occupying Israel's neighbor during that country's ongoing civil war. All images © 2008, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. Waltz with Bashir is based on Ari Folman's experiences as a young Israeli Defense Force solider on duty in a Beirut refugee camp during a massacre.
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