Talk:Waltz with Bashir

"...the movie depicts a vague and violent time in Lebanon's history."
We need a much better explanation of how the film has been received in Lebanon. For starters, nothing is 'vague' about the Sabra massacre of Palestinians, nor the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. These are two highly specific and hugely important events in Lebanese history. They are talked about everyday in an ongoing painful dialogue that is still shaping the country's future. What was a military invasion for the IDF was an all out civil war for Lebanon, a complicated chaos of tremendous bloodshed and total social turmoil, and most significantly, all of the relevant warring parties are still present on the national stage today. The civil war is never far for the Lebanese, and in the midst of the current political unstability it isn't yet considered a thing of the past. Its a very precarious situation, and sometimes it may even seem like the horror will begin again. Couple that with the blood red fresh Israeli assault of 3 years ago and one can imagine that an Israeli movie that deals with one of the most controversial topics in Lebanese history (Sabra) through the voice of teenage IDF soldiers set to rock music would be less than celebrated. Additionally, there is a hypocrisy in the movies clear condemnation of the Lebanese Falangists (the perpetrators of the Sabra massacre) beside its relative presentation of the IDF soldiers as unknowing and unwilling and generally innocent participants, when one considers that Israel is the reason all those Palestinians were there in the first place.

Something of all this should be offered to the uninformed reader to explain the sensitivities involved with Lebanese resistance to the movie. Personally, I found the movie very moving and informative, but perhaps a bit too facilely judgmental. Trefalcon (talk) 10:31, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

"First-ever animated documentary"? I think not
As there have already been some scholarly articles written on the subject of animated documentaries (e.g. DelGaudio, Sybil. If Truth Be Told, Can Toons Tell It? Documentary and Animation. Film History 9:2 (1997) p. 189-199) , I hardly think that this this film can be called the first. Some films mentioned in that article are:
 * The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918, Windsor McKay)
 * The Einstein Theory of Relativity (1923, Max & Dave Fleischer)
 * Evolution (1925, Max & Dave Fleischer)
 * Victory Through Air Power (1943, Walt Disney)
 * Of Stars and Men (1964, John Hubley) (won an award in the documentary category at the San Francisco Film Festival)

Chris Robinson (head of the Ottawa Animation Festival) mentions some more recent examples in this article, notably the films of Paul Fierlinger (scenes from A Room Nearby can be watched here) and the Oscar-winning Ryan.

In addition, there are the animated autobiographies which might be called documentaries insofar as they are telling a true story, for example Persepolis and Fierlinger's 1995 feature Drawn From Memory.

So I think I will now clarify the claims on this page a little... Esn (talk) 06:25, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * For those interested, I've written an article about the genre of animated documentary. It's rather rough at the moment and is doubtlessly missing many things. Esn (talk) 08:31, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Problems with the Themes part
"responsibility for the massacre later carried out in a calculated way" this quote has no relation what so ever to historic fact. The massacre was carried out by Phalangist militia and not by Israeli soldiers as the above paragraph implies. 79.176.54.27 (talk) 19:43, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Chronology
The current text claims that the film took 4 years to complete, but also that the conversation which triggered the project took place in 2006. The film was released in 2008. I'm guessing 2006 is incorrect - can anyone clarify? Mezigue (talk) 21:28, 20 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I've seen the movie. The in-movie conversation does take place in 2006. I'm guessing some artistic liberties were taken regarding dates.  Rami R  10:59, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * According to this article the conversation took place in real life in 2003. How strange that he would change that.  But I guess if the film says 2006 the summary must say that too. Mezigue (talk) 12:03, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I think he might've chosen that because of the second lebanon war, which was in the summer of 2006. The movie places the interview at the winter of 2006, maybe after this war. --Elifer (talk) 22:55, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Porn section
I entered this line in the "Style" section. It has since been removed:

There is a brief animated pornographic scene in the film.

Apparently, this was removed because it wasn't notable. I would argue that it is very unusual to include animated hardcore porn in the middle of a film; this scene was also in a different language (German) to the rest of the film. As the "Style" section describes the distinctive nature of Waltz with Bashir, I thought that the porn part was worth mentioning as long as the details of its depictions are not too specific. Epa101 (talk) 21:30, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Let's be accurate. The porn isn't really a scene as of itself. The scene is soldiers watching German language porn. I personally don't view this scene as particularly notable or unusual in the movie, but rather as another example of some of the soldiers day to day life in Lebanon. I also don't believe that "people watching porn"-scene is unique to Waltz with Bashir, though I currently can't think of any examples. That said, our interpretation of what is or isn't notable is not what counts. What counts is what sources say. If a reliable source is given that mentions the porn scene as notable, then it must be stated so in the article. (I am aware that it is somewhat hypocritical of me to say this, given that the section doesn't have any sources anyway...)  Rami R  22:22, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree to this as an example of day to day life. I watched the movie in German language (the "porn"-scene was german as well) and the whole cinema laughed, because the dialog is very exaggerated. So it should be considered as humorous, not as pornographic. --80.132.220.129 (talk) 09:34, 10 January 2009 (UTC)


 * As a student of philology I can tell you that EVERYTHING in such a film is important and has a raison d'etre, i.e. it is not there by accident or because the script-writers couldn't think of anything else. The whole movie systematically portrays the Israeli soldiers in a bad light - they are either utterly incompetent and cowards (e.g. the scene where they flee their Merkava tank as soon as the first rounds of enemy fire hit it, or the other scene where the young protagonist swims out into the sea to escape the scene of the fighting, and there are many more such scenes), or they are like Nazis. The German Nazi porn is not there by accident - it is a symbolic representation of the Israelis supposed drive to emulate their historic persecuters, the Nazis. A drunk Israeli general in the midst of a war watching German porn - that scene is so overloaded with symbolism. In other scenes the Israeli psychiatrist explicitly likens Sabra and Shatila to Auschwitz, and in yet another scene he compares it to the Warsaw Ghetto. The message the movie wants to bring across in a less than subtle way is crystal clear: The Israelis are the Nazis of today ! -- Alexey Topol (talk) 21:21, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

German and French cinema stubs
This film is an Israeli production. Most Holliwodian movies were actually producted in the same way as "Waltz with Bashir" was. For instance, Ridely Scotts' "Gladiator" entire soundtrack was composed by Hans Zimmer who live and born in Germany and still no body was thinking of adding Gladiator article to "German stubs". The lion's share of "Waltz with Bashir" was made in Israel, the film was entirely animated in Israel, the script is 100% Israeli, the language is 99% Hebrew, and even the soundtrack, which parts of it were composed by German Max Richter, include large chunks of Israeli authentic music and 80's british music. So, what justification one have to call "Waltz with Bashir" a "co production" or worse to add it to "German/French cinema" categories or stubs or to call it a" German language film" (only half minute of the film includes German, and not even with connection to the movie itself..there is one scene where an Israeli officer sitted in a Lebanese flat is seeing German video porn he founds there -and one can hear the German porn actors speaking German...so much for the movie "German language"). Please make the necessary removels, if nobody explain why these stubs, categories and etc should stay here, I will remove them myself ...--Gilisa (talk) 18:12, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The financing came from Germany and France, specifically from the franco-german state TV station arte, ITVS International, the Medienbord Brandenburg and HOT. And you know how the old saying goes - you don't bite the hand that feeds you, or in other words: Germany and France had a vested interest in this film, which portrays Israel in a bad light. It helps them to live easier with their guilt for the Holocaust if they can point fingers at Israel, like "See, we had a good reason to exterminate the Jews ! Look how evil those Israelis are !" -- Alexey Topol (talk) 21:30, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * France (and probably Germany but I don't know) gives money to make hundreds of movies every year, about all subjects. And yes arte is a TV channel, all big French TV channels (public and private) help paying for movie production, nothing unusual here. Now, I could conceive that a movie putting a lot of bad light on France might not get money, but I doubt there is somebody lobbying to help make movies showing Israel in a bad light. Maybe what Israel does is just not always great ? BTW there are quite a few French movies about the French involvement in the Holocaust, made with French money. A notable one this year was La Rafle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Round_Up_%28film%29 . Besides, what you're implying is that the movie director, Ari Folman, would shop around his project with the line "I'm Israeli and I want to bash my country, give me money", I'm sorry but I don't buy that. France has quite a few Jews and I don't remember a big uproar about the film either. Aesma (talk) 09:11, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

notable?
Here's an Ha'aretz article reporting that WWB was screened in Beirut:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1057268.html

Considering that an Israeli movie probably hasn't been screened - officially or otherwise - in Lebanon in decades, seems notable.

First time wiki user, not really comfortable adding it myself. Mikonam (talk) 03:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I have added a section on how the government is banning it, and how Lebanese reacted to the film, many by making sure, everybody gets to see it. Though someone, deleted that section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.2.74.130 (talk) 22:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

complementing book
To anyone who has liked this movie: I can highly recommend reading De Niro's Game - a book set in the same time/place but with a different perspective. The book and the movie complement eachother very well and help you understand history from bottom up. —Kaeptn*haddock (talk) 05:56, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Confabulated memories
There's a scene about 10 minutes into the film in which Garry & Wade's experiment on false memories http://pbr.psychonomic-journals.org/content/12/2/359.full.pdf is described anecdotally. This tale of a childhood hot-air balloon ride that never happened is a staple of psych courses today, so it's odd that I can find nothing about either researcher or the experiment itself on the wiki. If entries are ever added, I think they ought to link to this film and vice versa. Asat (talk) 03:35, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * We have an article on Confabulation and False memory syndrome, which could probably be expanded with info on that experiment. I don't know about linking between the articles though; the link is just trivia, IMO.  Rami  R  07:02, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

documentary?
why is this movie considered a documentary if some characters in it are fictional? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.87.131.142 (talk) 02:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

"Coverage of the film's subject material" Section
I propose deleting this section. It comes across as particularly biased, and more so, unnecessary. I haven't seen any other historical film on wikipedia with a section devoted to a "coverage of the film's subject material." Yet there is this section, using sources who are not historians in any case. I haven't seen any other historical film with a similar section on wikipedia. Drsmoo (talk) 21:52, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree completely. They aren't even reputable, well known, unbiased outside sources, and they seem to make misinformed/inflammatory comments. Delete it, most definitely. - Sweet Nightmares  03:04, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

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