Waltz With Bashir

"Waltz With Bashir" is one of the best films of 2008. Ari Folman, documentarian, pieces together his past in the war in a fragmented, visually unmatched documentary in which he details the lack of clarity of the war in amazing animation. Folman finds twisted poetry in the 1982 Lebanon war in which he was in, and also shows the lack of recollection caused. When he meets a friend of his, who describes his murdering of sentinel dogs, the flashbacks that he never had come piling on. There is one in particular where he emerges from a sleep in the sea, and walks dazedly through a destroyed city. It's power is enhanced by a haunting score by Max Richter that I can't describe. The movie is somewhat the same: indescribable, stunning, (as Ebert sort of said) harrowing, and (as someone said I believe) very strange. All-in-all, "Waltz With Bashir" is a masterful achievement, (as someone said) one where a former soldier documents his horrible memories and (as someone said) quite brilliantly at that. He captures the very nature of the battleground, the falter of reality, the lives scarred, and the ultimate destruction caused. It is endlessly worthy of praise, for its bold and daring look. Although one part in particular drags, it is not enough to deter the course of Folman's great film. A