It starts like an animated fiction film with a highly stylised, animated dream sequence. A ferocious pack of black dogs tears down a city street at twilight, mouths foaming and eyes ablaze, hell bent on destruction, as the soundtrack booms with a pounding, menacing bass line. The dream belongs to Ari’s friend and former comrade, which he connects to his time serving in action. This acts as a catalyst to Folman’s project: he realises his subconscious has blanked out the period he spent with the military in Lebanon, so he sets out to find out what happened to him by interviewing old friends and comrades
The stream of personal anecdotes and, as said earlier, dreams, made it impossible for Folman to show real footage of what he/interviewees experienced. After all, how do you show a live-action dream sequence in a documentary without making it look corny? Hence the winning choice of rendering the whole story through animation, with just one exception (the final scene, the one that contextualises the stark depressing reality of the war, consists of real filmed material). This gives the picture a feel that is both evocative and down-to-earth.
What i find personally astounding and original about WWB is that it knowingly confronts you with the fact that scenes are re-enactments, interpretations of facts and experiences, scenes are surreally animated yet seem to have more of a sense of realism because of it, you cannot watch WWB with neutrality and complete subjectivity to characters and events, you are drawn in first by the knowledge that the events depicted genuinely happened then by the emotional subjectivity you form to the characters/interviewees by the powerful images onscreen.
the switch to archive documentary footage of the real Sabra & Shatila massacre at the films climax, is after all the animated footage, a sobering experience of the real horror of the massacre. However in many reviews, message board posts and articles about the film, people have stated that some of the animated scenes (particularly the war photographers story) had more of an impact on them in terms of thinking about the reality of the horrors of war.
The fact that the animated depicitions have equal or more impact than the live action footage I think is a powerful justification for Animated documentary as a genre, WWB seems to have popularised & expanded on what an animated documentary can be, and that is what i personally believe will be its lasting impact on the history of animated documentary in years to come.
AN INTERVIEW WITH ARI FOLMAN (Dir of Waltz with Bashir)
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