Events

Inspired by actual events, Waltz with Bashir chronicles one man's descent into his own half-forgotten past. Filmmaker Ari Folman, an Israeli veteran of the First Lebanon War, encounters an old friend suffering from nightmares of the conflict. Ari begins to wonder why his own memories are full of gaps. In an effort to uncover the truth, he reconnects with old friends and dares to confront the horrors of war. Folman’s decision to use animation to uncover the story of the massacre of three thousand civilians during the war is a brilliant one: freed from prosaic, literal images, the film abandons verisimilitude in favor of a vivid, surrealistic palette that reflects the unreliable memories of Folman’s subjects. Hailed as “a work of astonishing aesthetic integrity and searing moral power” by A.O. Scott of the New York Times, Waltz with Bashir fuses animation and documentary to create an experience unlike anything you've ever witnessed. Post-screening discussion with director Ari Folman. (Ari Folman, Israel, 2008, 90 min., 35mm)