Waltz With Bashir
Ari Folman will return to the director's chair this summer with The Congress, but it is Waltz With Bashir that was the film that really put him on the map.
Waltz With Bashir hit the big screen back in 2008, and saw Folman tackle the documentary genre with this very personal project.
In 1982, Folman was a soldier during Israel's first invasion of Lebanon. This was a painful moment in history, when the newly elected president of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, was killed in an explosion.
Furious, his party, the Christian Phalangists, retaliated by storming into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps and massacring thousands of innocent victims.
Over 20 years later, Folman is disturbed to realize that he has no memory of this incident even though he was there at the time. In order to remember, he tracks down several of his friends and soldiers who were there with him to find out what really happened.
Waltz With Bashir was one of the best films that I had the pleasure to see in 2008, and it remains one of the best war movies of recent years: and I would say of all time.
Waltz With Bashir is a movie that is brutal, powerful, personal, potent, emotional, and beautiful all at the same time: it really is a film that is an assault on the senses and on the emotions.
The animation is just spectacular - it really is one of the most original looking animation films I have ever seen. Every scene flashes and crackles as we are taken into a war as well as an imaginary world.
This is a film that does show us that war is hell, but it also explores the idea of how fickle and fragile memory can be.
This is a unique way of looking at the horrors of war and the long lasting damage it has to the solider who were just 'following orders'.
It's hard to believe that war documentary and animation would fit together but the pair go are beautiful bedfellows and this movie is one of the most extraordinary animation movies that you are likely to see.
Waltz With Bashir is a movie that will stay with you long after the credits have rolled, and Folman is brave to let an audience into this very personal quest.