icefire65

Ari Folman's takes us through an amazing experience via this Israelite animated documentary which traces the events during the 1982 Lebanon War, told from the perspective of the directors' own experiences as a soldier during the massacres.

The script is cleverly written with an intriguing opening involving a haunting nightmare with 26 vicious dogs, which not only aroused the protagonist of the film to rediscover his vanished memories of the war, but also intrigued the audiences to explore/reminisce the horrific events. His various visits to a string of people who were involved in the war revealed the shocking events, step by step, with each scene more heartfelt and profound than the previous ones.

Its animated nature may mistaken some audiences before they step into the cinema, in terms of the topic it dealt with, as those who are slightly oblivious to the plot may merely expect sensory stimulation from a seemingly 'cool' animated feature. However, the result proved to be as shocking and real as it would be if it was a documentary. In fact, a real life recreation would probably not create an analogous impact to Folman's work. The dialogues and violence successfully conveyed the horror and complexity of war through actual and surreal events, not to mention the visual aesthetics and the thoughtful sound editing/background music.

With so many war films made in the past and present, some may inevitably fail to create a strong impression. However, Waltz with Bashir is unlike anything I have ever seen, the disturbing elements and messages are interpreted in such a unique way that, it left me heartfelt even after a couple of days.

A definite 10/10.

OK, before I stepped into the cinema, plenty of my mates (mostly girls) were obsessed with the movie, they've either seen it more than once, or bought the book right after seeing it. I've got zero interest in this movie because 1) not into vampires and all the fantasy talk, 2) just not interested in the movies and 3) it seems all commercialised and well, it's just not something that I will spare the bucks for. But seeing how almost everyone seemed to be seduced by the movie, I decided to give it a go, partly because of the peer pressure from my mates.

Damn. I regretted seeing it. It wasted my time and money. It's not because it's a crap movie that should be bashed, but because the movie just doesn't deserve all this hype. The movie was slow... and the dialogue was just so old-fashioned and corny (spoken by an actress with no emotions whatsoever) - dialogues such as "I'm not scared, I'm just scared of loosing you" - do teens nowadays still fall for this kind of thing? I don't feel the connection between the two leads, the action was bad, and well, the actors were just not attractive. I know there's a certain degree of subjectivity to concepts like these, but c'mon - it's just a mediocre so called blockbuster.. about two teenagers falling in love and the conflicts they encounter and that's about it. Maybe I'm two months from not being a teenager, therefore I'm too old to fall for these type of genres, but a good movie will always attract me regardless of genre (I'm not into witches and magic but I liked the Harry Potter series). But this one just doesn't have any surprising elements - what's new about a guy carrying a girl on his back and flying her? The whole thing is just corny and old-fashioned and slow. Hence, I don't get the hype surrounding this.

Watching this is a waste of 99 minutes of my life and my money! first off, the plot is weak and pointless. the direction is slow and unsteady. there are no chemistry between the two leads and i don't feel their 'friendship'.

this movie is not touching nor emotional nor funny. sure its different, but in a weird sense. there's no message delivered from this film and i found my eyes half closed during the whole duration of this lifeless, dead picture.

i guess the response from Brazilian audiences are different to foreign audiences. which is why, i cant believe this movie is rated so high on IMDb.