The rotoscoping technique in Waltz With Bashir attracted me. Although I watched a lot of animations, I only watched 2D animations like Disney’s and Hiyao Miyazaki’s. Unlike the animations I’ve watched, Waltz With Bashir by Ari Folman is an animated documentary. It can also be considered as Ari Folman’s autobiography. This Iranian animation is very new to me especially in context.
Folman’s autobiography requires a lot of context to be able to truly understand what was going on. For example the commonly used word “Phalangist” is referring to the Lebanese’s allies. After I watched the film and did some additional research, I was able to appreciate the film even more. It took Folman 25 years to make this film, mostly regaining his memory of…show more content… The animation depicts the painful war experience in slow pace like a“Waltz.” This symbolism was emphasized when Frenkel started dancing in the middle of the road with a MAG and an instrumental music in the background. This slow pace made the violence even more prominent. Additionally, Folman’s script was biased in a way, because he really stressed that the massacre was committed by the Christian Phalangists. This makes the animation reliable in its emotional content because Folman experienced it himself, but makes it questionable in context because Folman couldn’t have known every detail of the event. However, the interviews helped support the credibility of the film. Broken into sections of interviews, the film had to switch between different perspectives and this made it more dynamic. During the interview scenes, the animation would depict what was happening along with some scenes of the person being interviewed. This change in narrator also makes the film more realistic because the event becomes dimensional instead of a story that is being told from one narrator. This helped me better understand the event, but sometimes it was confusing for me because the characters looked alike and this rapid change was too much at times. Folman uses monochromatic colors to separate scenes. For example, blue scenes are for dreams like when the giant lady came up from the sea. Since that scene is a…show more content… These were used to symbolize the fear and nightmares of the Israeli’s soldiers. The repetition of the nightmare scene where Folman is in the water represents his fear and how he wants freedom from the pain of the war. Water seems to be a calming place in the animation which represents freedom. These techniques were used to convey the implicit meaning of the film, which is we can never run away from the real truth and fear. Another thing that I find really interesting and successful are the is the camera angle. There were a variety of camera angles and my favorite was when we were looking through binoculars. Folman uses first person camera angles to bring the audience into the world of the soldiers. Meanwhile, he also uses wide shots where we see everything like the observer’s perspective. This helps bring the audience into the world of the characters, but also maintaining the sense of the story as a whole. I also find the song very catchy even when I didn’t understood it. I searched it up and it was called “Good Morning Lebanon.” It is about the ideal Lebanon or what the country wants in term of life, peace and happiness. It was a very relaxing because of its slow rhythm and country style instruments. When the song was played, I felt like I am taking a break from all the violence and depression of the film. Ironically, when this song was played, there was a scene where a kid was holding a big gun and was shot by the