Waltz with Bashir
Waltz with Bashir Image
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Metascore
91 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 33 Critics What's this?

User Score
8.3 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 82 Ratings

Your Score
0 out of 10
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  • Starring: Ari Folman, Ron Ben-Yishai, Ronny Dayag
  • Summary: 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 i 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]… Collapse

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 32 out of 33
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 33
  3. Negative: 0 out of 33
  1. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    100
    It is personal filmmaking of the highest order, recognized with an Academy Award nomination for best foreign film.
  2. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    100
    This psycho-thriller, a Golden Globe winner and presumptive favorite for the foreign-film Oscar, itself is revelatory.
  3. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    80
    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.
  4. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Peter Brunette
    60
    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.

See all 33 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 24 out of 29
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 29
  3. Negative: 3 out of 29
  1. ArkaMukherjee
    10
    Ending up watching this movie is so much like waking up from a bad dream, when everything beside us, all of a sudden becomes harsh reality from long-forgotten vivid images. Ari Folman takes us to a frightening post-war world where everyone seems to be living in a trance, hiding form their own memory from days past. A war documentary like this, is one of its kind, and the never-seen-before animation technique adds something really different in this movie. It lets you stuck in your sofa, thanking god because your teenage was never like this. And you didn't have to see another haunted ocean.

    Watch. And think. And imagine. Because its real. And not so real.    … Expand
  2. ryancarroll88
    8
    Ari Folman uses his lost memory of his presence in the massacres at Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War to craft a dazzling sudo-documentary, whose vivid animation complements the advent of his visceral, dummy recollections from pure imagination to grueling reality. Though the experience is completely enveloping as it is, the movie moves needlessly in slow motion, as if for the sole purpose of stretching time. Still, it's a minor complaint in an otherwise fantastic movie.… Expand
  3. JayH
    7
    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.… Expand
  4. BobN
    4
    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.… Expand

See all 29 User Reviews

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