Movie review: Animated 'Waltz With Bashir'

Think of the most mind-boggling scene in a war film - say the one in "Apocalypse Now" where a shirtless Robert Duvall proclaims (as bombs fall and fires rage) "I love the smell of napalm in the morning"; or the one in "Black Hawk Down" where a U.S. soldier is pinned down in a deserted Somali street against overwhelming firepower - and recall the ominous feeling that overcame you. Recall the stench of conflict that seemed to permeate your stomach. Recall the edginess that engulfed your brain even as the action segued into less dramatic footage.

Now, ratchet that up 10 times, and that's what to expect from this juggernaut of a film. The best movie of 2008? The most revealing war film ever made? The greatest animated feature to come out of Israel? All these descriptions could apply to "Waltz With Bashir," a confessional account of Ari Folman's experience as a young soldier during Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

Less is more here. Violence permeates the movie, but Folman's feature is festooned with long stretches of introspection. In fact, it's the introspection - as much as the brilliant animation, and the unimaginable horrors of warfare - that pushes "Waltz With Bashir" into the category of unforgettable filmmaking. It's not just Folman (or, at least, the animated Folman) who tries to reconcile his time in Lebanon, it's his fellow ex-Israeli soldiers - all middle-aged, all out of the military - who look back and cringe or cry or laugh with nervousness.

"Waltz With Bashir" dramatizes sequences, but the basic facts reflect the hell that enveloped Folman, his fellow soldiers and Lebanon's civilian population, particularly the Palestinians who were massacred by Christian Phalangist forces in Beirut's Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. As a soldier, Folman was on the outskirts of that 1982 massacre - or was he? In the beginning of "Waltz With Bashir," Folman doesn't know what to think. When a friend - also a veteran - describes his nightmares about menacing dogs from Lebanon, Folman's repression comes undone, and he begins to remember faint outlines of the bloodletting that took place 20 years earlier. Interviews with other veterans - and flashbacks (some of them funny) to their time in Lebanon and their pre-war years - propel the film at a nonstop pace.

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