FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Waltz With Bashir 

Waltz With Bashir is an animated film that examines why thousands of innocent people were massacred. All this happened during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The victims lived in Palestinian refugee camps. They were executed by Christian militias. Nobody stopped them. The question of guilt was never resolved. Did Israel make the massacre possible? Or was it simply not possible to prevent it? Waltz with Bashir begins with a recurring nightmare. It was dreamed by a friend of director Ari Folman's, who tries to reconstruct his own war experiences. What happened then? It lies outside of what one can cope with. That's why Folman sets out to interview Israeli soldiers. Knowing that the truth depends less on facts than on memories. Therefore - in order to reconstruct memories, fantasy, hallucinations - Folman uses animation techniques for his documentary film. At least extraordinary enough, or has there ever been such a political documentary before? Normally, animated films are funny and cute. Here, animation serves the purpose of making the event visible at all. Waltz With Bashir is structured like a "normal" documentary. Folman interviews contemporary witnesses. But the animation allows him the freedom to imagine what the interviewees say. Even nightmares can be illustrated. Gradually the image of a massacre comes together. Who even knew what happened? Which Israeli commander would have been able to stop all this? There are no answers. In any case, there are no firm ones. A genocide took place and nobody can reconstruct it exactly. But doesn't wisdom say that in every war the whole is lost? In the end, the world regrets once again not having acted. Those responsible are morally guilty. Those who did not stop them are just as much to blame. That is us.