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Waltz with Bashir

EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics

Waltz with Bashir reviews
91
8.1 User Score:

Movie Info

Genre(s): Animation  |  Drama  |  War

Written by: Ari Folman

Directed by: Ari Folman

Release Date:
Theatrical: December 25, 2008
DVD: June 23, 2009

Running Time: 90 minutes, Color

Origin: Israel | Germany | France | USA

Language(s): Hebrew | German | English

Summary

RATING: R for some disturbing images of atrocities, strong violence, brief nudity and a scene of graphic sexual content

Starring Ron Ben-Yishai, Ronny Dayag, Ari Folman, and Dror Harazi

One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night, the same number of beasts. The two men conclude that there’s a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early eighties. Ari is surprised that he can’t remember a thing anymore about that period of his life. Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images. (Sony Classics)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Provocative, hallucinatory, incendiary, this devastating animated documentary is unlike any Israeli film you've seen. More than that, in its seamless mixing of the real and the surreal, the personal and the political, animation and live action, it's unlike any film you've seen, period.

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100

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

An absolute stunner, a feature-length animated documentary, from Israel, in which the force of moving drawings amplifies eerily powerful accounts of war, shaky remembrance and rock-solid repression.

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100

Empire Dan Jolin

A bravura documentary which balances the personal and the political as it peers into the First Lebanon War, its animated approach never feeling like a novelty. Astonishing, unforgettable: you have to see it.

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100

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Waltz With Bashir has transcended the definitions of ''cartoon'' or ''war documentary'' to be classified as its own brilliant invention.

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100

San Francisco Chronicle Jonathan Curiel

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.

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100

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Waltz With Bashir is a supremely courageous act, not only as a piece of filmmaking, but much more so as a moral testament.

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100

New York Magazine David Edelstein

It has taken an animated film to go where live-action dramas and even documentaries haven't--to tickle our synapses and slip into our bloodstream.

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100

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

It is personal filmmaking of the highest order, recognized with an Academy Award nomination for best foreign film.

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100

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

This psycho-thriller, a Golden Globe winner and presumptive favorite for the foreign-film Oscar, itself is revelatory.

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100

Washington Post John Anderson

A thinking person's horror movie, about real horror and horrifying echoes: The parallels between the Holocaust and the massacres are pronounced.

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100

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

What begins as an introspective odyssey examining the effects of war on the young Israeli soldiers turns into a provocative exposé on the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

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100

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Views war from the inside out and the outside in. It carries the shock of full disclosure.

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100

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

It's encouraging to see a nation so aware of its public image and defensive about its military decisions examine a dark day in its history.

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91

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

The film ends on an absolutely sick-making note, with live-action footage of the massacre and its aftermath.

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90

Newsweek David Ansen

The images of war that Folman and his chief illustrator, David Polonsky, conjure up have a feverish, infernal beauty. Dreams and reality jumble together.

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90

The New York Times A.O. Scott

A memoir, a history lesson, a combat picture, a piece of investigative journalism and an altogether amazing film.

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90

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

The results, in my judgment, are stunning...and at certain moments during the film I wondered whether I had myself fallen asleep and was dreaming its hellish, haunted images.

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89

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Be forewarned: Folman closes his film with a grisly, real-death denouement that may give you some nightmares of your own. As well it should.

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88

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Waltz With Bashir isn't only a harrowing anti-war plea, it is also an eloquent and deeply moving argument that it is critical to never forget human atrocity, lest the past be repeated.

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88

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Waltz With Bashir not only breathes but it howls - and sobs and curses and croons and, in the end, when sound proves useless in the face of calamity, falls into awful silence.

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88

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Folman is an Israeli documentarian who has not worked in animation. Now he uses it as the best way to reconstruct memories, fantasies, hallucinations, possibilities, past and present. This film would be nearly impossible to make any other way.

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88

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Get ready to be knocked for a loop.

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88

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Haunting is the best word for Waltz With Bashir, a striking animated documentary - not an oxy moron, despite how it sounds - from Israel.

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80

Film Threat Scott Mendelson

The tragic, violent true-life tale that concerns Waltz with Bashir is rendered even more powerful in animated form than it would likely have in life-action.

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80

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

This animated documentary, from former Israeli soldier Ari Folman, blends both tactics to devastating effect. Perhaps only animation could give us the distance that makes his subject bearable: the personal cost of his own participation in the 1982 Lebanon War.

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80

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Ari Folman's broodingly original Waltz With Bashir -- one of the highlights of the last New York Film Festival -- is a documentary that seems only possible, not to mention bearable, as an animated feature.

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80

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

Ari Folman, the director of Waltz with Bashir, has made a movie so unusual that it overflows any box in which you try to contain it. Call it an adult psycho-documentary combat cartoon and you're halfway there.

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80

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

Animation may be the ideal medium for replicating dreams, and in this unsettling feature by Ari Folman it also proves well suited to autobiography.

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80

Variety Leslie Felperin

It's these surreal touches, deployed with tactical restraint, that make the picture extraordinary and convey the febrile atmosphere of warfare, where by fear, horror -- and later guilt -- distort and distend perception and memory.

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75

USA Today Claudia Puig

This is a powerful, poignant and provocative film, told in an unconventional and effective fashion.

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75

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

The trouble with Bashir’s extraordinary technique is that it lacks the confrontational realism of live footage; the extreme stylization of the animation can be distancing, making it hard to relate the images to real events and people. But that’s also part of Folman’s point.

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75

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Profound, and profoundly affecting.

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60

The Hollywood Reporter Peter Brunette

The chosen style of animation leads to a distracting choppiness that renders the movements, gestures and facial expressions of the interviewees unconvincing. The other problem is that, memory naturally being something that returns in fits and starts, the film is rarely able to sustain any consistent narrative thrust.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 8.1 (out of 10) based on 50 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Bob N gave it a4:
Gotta say, I really wanted to like this film. Truth be told, it was sleep inducing. I understand the method: everything is in dreamstate or nightmare-realm untill the end-surprise-cut to live shot. The end is a great scene, but the rest of the film is lacking. Having experienced true horrors in my life, and having been to the depths of the human psyche, I appreciate the effort of this film...unfortunately, it all felt contrived, fake, and meaning to make a buck off of a sad-typical-soldier as victim but not story. Props for trying, but I believe this is a failure. Critics are way off on this one.

Nate gave it a9:
This is a wonderful film, haunting and moving at the same time. The animation is an effective tool that film makers do not use to its full potential. I can see why the critics loved it so much. Anyone saying that they did not understand the film should not be watching it. If your confused by the plot of Transformers you should probably stop watching films and go back to picture books and pop up books. Also saying that this is propaganda is just being ignorant of soldiers and the effects of post traumatic stress. This movie should be watched.

Simon M gave it a0:
Propaganda effort that attempts to excuse Israeli involvement in Lebanon. Cleverly done in admitting a portion of the blame and having the protagonists feeling amnesiac guilt. Ignores the current west bank and does not refer to it once despite the impossibility of ignoring it. No Lebanese co accused to share the blame in that I reckon.

Jay H gave it a7:
Very moving and disturbing, the animation is surprisingly effective. Very unique and innovative. The story is told exceptionally well. Good writing and direction.The score is particularly good.

Daniela V gave it a10:
It is a brilliant movie.

Edward K gave it a6:
The clever animation technique couldn't save this film. And I didn't see the value in animating the "talking heads" scenes of this documentary. Furthermore, I found the sequence of events confusing at times. Given the excellent reviews, I found myself disappointed.

iain f gave it a10:
Whilst let down by the animation in some parts of the film, overall the unique visual style this film encorporates captures the feel of the film's narrative perfectly. From the electrifying start, to the shocking and emotionally wrenching ending, Waltz With Bashir never ceased to disapoint. One of the best films to come from Israel of all time.

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