Waltz with Bashir.

The film is an animated documentary describing the horrors of the 1982 Lebanon war.
It is about real people sharing their story, telling what they experienced in the past and the nightmares they go through at the present because of a war they took part in. It includes interviews with psychologists and other experts. The movie has an important message to bring about the long term consequences war.

If it had remained a regular documentary I do not believe that many people would have bothered to see it. The genius thing about this movie is that they turned it into an animation. That opens for the possibility to present reality and fiction in an equal way as it appears in the minds of the ones who participated, and it gives the freedom to underline features in peoples faces which otherwise would not have been recognized easily.

The movie has received great critics from many different directions. It was premiered at the 2008 Cannes film Festival. It won a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, an IDA Award for Feature Documentary and was one of five movies nominated for Oscar for Best Foreign Movie (didn’t win).

This is not a movie to be happy from as it shows the ugliness of war without using any cosmetics. One of the important messages is the impact this war had on the future of the young soldiers who participated.

It is as the wisdom from the story about the ancient Jewish king David who ruled 3000 years ago comes to life again. This king had one big dream for his life and that was to build a Temple for the God of Israel in Jerusalem. He never managed to fulfill that dream and the reason was ; “ …you have been a man of war and have shed blood” ( 1 Chron: 28,3)

Elin Elkouby