Waltz with Bashir
When the Israeli film Waltz with Bashir took its bow at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008, praise followed. There were glowing reviews of how director Ari Folman made good use of animation to fit in with the hallucinatory nature of the film's narrative, which revisits his real-life struggle to remember his experiences as part of the Israeli forces invading Lebanon in 1982.
Many critics also saw the work as a notable 'anti-war' film, as it chronicles both the horrors of war and how helpless young conscripts are sucked into a cycle of violence that can scar them for life.
The film begins with a recurrent bad dream of one of Folman's friends, featuring menacing canines roaming the streets and wreaking havoc - a result, the man explains, of him being assigned to kill stray dogs (whose howling would give away the presence of the Israeli units) in Beirut during that military incursion.
Revisiting the film three years later, Waltz with Bashir has retained all of its innovation and power. In an age when mainstream animation has lost its allure due to the tiresome pursuit of technical gimmickry, Folman's reliance on old-school drawings and simple computer technology (more than 2,300 illustrations filmed and then processed by animation software) remains refreshingly engaging.
The fact that Israel began yet another invasion months after the film's release - this time into the Gaza Strip - added to the value of Folman's tale.
While Waltz with Bashir has reaped awards galore at home and abroad, the film has since been met with criticism from detractors in Israel who had reservations about depicting the soldiers' helplessness.
Waltz does contain scenes which question how politicians thrive while the soldiers suffer. But it is also seen as being vague about the role of the Israeli Defence Forces during the notorious massacres of Palestinian civilians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps on September 16-18, 1982.
Folman's take is that he and his peers knew nothing about the atrocities committed by the Phalangist militias - the Israelis' allies - within the camps while they stood stationed outside. This adds to the discussion of memories and forgetting which Folman brings to the table with his film.
Waltz with Bashir, today, 7.30pm, Sept 24, 5.30pm, HK Arts Centre
