I am locked in forever . . .By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"
"The horror! The horror!" Conrad's Heart of Darkness
I am not a big fan of war movies except for the realistic impact of the beach scene in Saving Private Ryan. Along comes the unforgettable animated documentary, Waltz With Bashir, with impressionistic images of dazed Israeli soldiers invading Lebanon, and I'm locked in forever to the limbo between the abstract, removed sensibility of animated soldiers trying to remember a massacre and the palpable reality that it did occur.
These unreal images are the reality, leached from my imagination into my memory as if I had been a witness as well. I can't forget the almost slow motion of the soldiers, floating like ghosts through fire and water to their horrific destiny.
Like the drunken soldier of the title dancing and shooting in a circle near the image of assassinated Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel, director Ari Folman haltingly tries to revive the memory of a massacre that occurred at the time of that invasion. The slow revelation of abominations (Rashomon comes to mind), including his inadvertent slaughter of a family, is done so smoothly it is not immediately apparent we have lived through an epiphany of our own.
The guilt of the Christian militia that perpetrates the massacre of thousands is never determined, nor is it clear how Israeli officers could have allowed the slaughter of Palestinian civilians. The unreal, animated imagery heightens the perception of the horrors.
In one memorable scene, Ari and other soldiers emerge from the river like Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) in Apocalypse Now, as if they were sea horses moving silently to land. Although the massacre of a family that ensues is a minor prelude to the one to follow, the animation allows the very idea of primeval fear and terror to take imaginative form?the abstract nature of the image makes understanding easier than the grim reality of a Private Ryan, Blackhawk Down, or Full Metal Jacket.
The reality is surreal; the surreal is reality.
It could be thought that the surreal imagery compromises the reality, that the characters slip into abstraction because of the fanciful medium. So be it. Nothing about war and the attendant massacres is anywhere near the experience of ordinary, safe citizens like most of us who have not gone to war. I crumble with guilt that I have lived while so many innocents have died.
Such is the power of Waltz With Bashir to evoke these thoughts. It deserves to have been nominated for a foreign-language Oscar.
John DeSando teaches film at Franklin University and co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time and Cinema Classics shows, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand anytime at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com