Ari Folman’s documentary Waltz with Bashir offers an interesting portrayal of traumatic events through the lens of stylized animation. The documentary itself shows the director, Folman, unravelling his part in the Israeli and Lebanon conflict in the 1980s. In reference to Honess Roe’s Animated Documentary (2013), the films medium of animation overall helps to create a non-bias towards reality and dreams/ memories in the portrayal of the soldier’s experience. Its aesthetic style emanates the real people involved while keeping a distinct stylization that helps accentuate the ‘ fantastical’ and dreamlike elements explored through the film (Honess Roe, 2013).

The use of colour throughout the film creates a visual impact, particularly in separating scenes reality and non-reality. There is a pivotal moment in the feature in which Folman is represented floating in a body of water with bright orange flashes illuminating the sky, as soon as this dream enters the reality of his memories the setting cascades in a cool blue tone. Hoeness Roe brings to attention a scene in which a soldier has a dream of a giant woman emerging from the water and carrying him to safety, while the boat he was previously on is blown to pieces (Hoeness Roe, 2013:162). During this dramatic explosion, the cool blue tones are then contrasted with a similar orange tone to that of Folman’s personal repeating hallucination. This could, once again, be a visual representation of the manifestation of trauma-induced hallucinations caused by the Israeli forces projecting flares to signify refugee campsites, which ultimately lead to the massacres featuring the plot of the documentary. As mentioned by Hoeness Roe, the psychoanalyst who appears in the documentary makes a point about how apparitions of bodies of water can reflect guilt in a personal subconscious (2013: 163). These strong visual representations of soldiers dream-like hallucinations both give indications early on in the film that they have played the same role and are processing trauma in the same context, which furthers the documentaries ‘therapeutic’ benefits.

A Major part of the live-action sequences in Waltz with Bashir (Folman, 2008) is the live-action footage that is featured at the end of the film. This can be argued to be its the strongest point of documenting the reality of the Sabra and Shatila Massacre and pulling viewers back into the reality of what really happened. This could be described as “an afterthought designed to wrench the viewer back into an empathetic engagement with mimetic reality” (Saunders quoted in Roe, 2013, p.168). Adding empathy into a distressing scenario is vital for viewer engagement with the issue being presented. Nicholas Hedrick, however, has an opposing opinion stating clearly that-

“However, while this war and this massacre are the occasions for the film, Waltz with Bashir is not a historically nuanced film. It provides almost no context for the war, does not explain Palestinian or Israeli presence in Lebanon in this period, and does not situate the history of conflict in that area of the world“ (Hetrick, 2010, p.78).

This is an important point to consider when looking at the validity of Waltz with Bashir’s (Folman, 2008) ability to factually document. This may provide “epistemological superiority of live-action material over animation“ (Honess Roe, 2013,p.168) and indicates that the more profound viewer impact mostly derives from this footage and disregards animation. Alternatively, Honess Roe also argues the point that, contextually, without the rest of the animated film the live-action sequence would not have as devastating an impact (2013). Adding Folman gaps in his memory add a dash of realism and highlight the severity of the impact of the war, in more ways than just the victims of the massacre themselves (Honess Roe, 2013). In doing so, this adds an emotional depth that news report imagery cannot achieve by itself, and could be argued that just as Folman animated experience is solidified by live-action, the live-action is also solidified by the animated experiences.

Silence (Bringas and Yadin, 1998) in aesthetic considerations has two Strikingly different styles, that differentiate yet blend two different aspects of Tana Ross’s life. In a similar light to Death and The Mother (1988), Ruth Lingford creates a dark and atmospheric approach to Tana Ross’s associative memory of the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

“The woodcut-style animation renders everything but the demarcated objects and characters as a black void, a looking threat of emptiness” (Honess Roe, 2013, p.158)

This contrast with Tim Webbs, bright and colourful style associated with his previous film ‘A is for Autism’ (1992) that accentuates how “only after liberation could life be lived in colour” (Honess Roe, 2013, p. 158). The ways in which the two visual styles communicate with one another throughout the film visually express things about Tana’s Trauma without explicitly stating it. For example, When the Swedish train worker metamorphosis into the German Train officer, it highlights her fear and associations that still linger in her everyday life (Honess Roe, 2013). Honess Roe mentions how this metamorphic action helps communicate Ross’s struggle to verbally communicate her trauma due to years of silently repressing it.

Figures –

figure 1- Folman, A (2008). [Screenshot]. Waltz with Bashir. Isreal, France, Germany, United States, Finland, Switzerland, Belgium, Australia: Bridgit Folman Films, Les Films d’lci, Razor Film Producktion GmbH.

Figure 2- Bringas, S and Yadin, O. (1998). [Screenshot]. Silence. United Kingdom: Halo Productions Ltd.

Bibliography-

.Hetrick, N. (2010). ‘Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir and the Limits of Abstract Tragedy’. Image and Narrative: Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative, [Online] 2(11), pp.78-91. Available at: <http://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/imagenarrative/article/view/77> [Accessed 21 December 2021].

Honess Roe, A. (2013). Animated Documentary.Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Pp. 155-169.

Filmography

A is for Autism (1992). Directed by T. Webb. [Film]. United Kingdom: Fine Take Productions, Channel Four Television Corporation.

Death and the Mother (1997). Directed by R .Lingford.[Film]. United Kingdom: Channel Four Films

Silence (1998) Directed by S.Bringas and O. Yadin. [Film]. United Kingdom: Halo Productions LTD.

Waltz with Bashir (2008). Directed by A. FOLMAN. Israel, France, Germany, United States.