More on "Waltz with Bashir"
Jan. 20th, 2009 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaI slept like a log last night.
Woke up at dawn and watched a first instances of light filter through... and went back to sleep.
No dreams.
No visions.
Just... pure sleep.
Last night I was unable to write about the film coherently because I was still in a state of catharsis.
It's a very difficult movie, the animation creates a buffer from the gory reality that is portrayed and the seamless transition between the present, memory and hallucination was... magnificent.
Ari Folman is a very courageous film maker, he is making a statement that is very, very political but yet transcends "Left" or "Right", he's showing how we remember that which we really don't want to.
Folman himself doesn't consider the film to be political, just very personal.
But everyone knows, by now, that the Personal is Political and he shows us exactly how intricate that relationship is.
We don't see what went through the minds of the Phalangists or of the Palestinians, he only shows us what goes on in the mind ofkids men, who were kids, that witnessed an atrocity and were also complicit in it.
As I said, watching the movie inevitably brought back memories of my own War.
The second Lebanon war.
I recognised Beirut in ruins and I recognised the aerial films that target people in order to bomb them.
Not much has changed.
That could very well have been a point.
Memory is a weird and, ha, surreal thing.
It's also a real thing, though not tangible.
The film shows how this works, how events that are experienced, history will construe differently.
There are complete scenes in the movie that reminded me of things I experienced, but I don't really want to give things away because not knowing all the details and spoilers really enhances the viewing.
One thing that is by now well known about the movie is that at the very end, just before the credits, there is actual footage of Sabra and Shatila after the massacre and it happens just as the young soldier remembers, clearly and really, what happened.
Those memories of war which for twenty years he just didn't want to remember.
It was extraordinary.
Watching the movie wasn't just cathartic for me.
With this viewing I feel I've come full circle with myself as far as my own war is concerned.
Which makes me very, very glad.
Because with the closing of this story I don't need to be haunted any more, I don't need to make sure all the time that I'm not too anxious or starting a spiral of panic.
I'm stronger than I used to be.
Even my therapist says so... and so I've reached a peak of my therapy and will no longer be needing to see her on such a regular basis... just when and if I need to.
Which makes me very, very glad.
Behind the very beautiful moving pictures is a very real and true story, history and it is unforgiving.
This movie is an anti-war film in the sense that when you identify with the soldiers, and you do, you don't want to be there just as much as them.
I have a feeling I'll carry this movie for a long time.
The trailer is really just a taste, a drop in the ocean that is this film:
I hope this didn't take too much of your time.
Woke up at dawn and watched a first instances of light filter through... and went back to sleep.
No dreams.
No visions.
Just... pure sleep.
Last night I was unable to write about the film coherently because I was still in a state of catharsis.
It's a very difficult movie, the animation creates a buffer from the gory reality that is portrayed and the seamless transition between the present, memory and hallucination was... magnificent.
Ari Folman is a very courageous film maker, he is making a statement that is very, very political but yet transcends "Left" or "Right", he's showing how we remember that which we really don't want to.
Folman himself doesn't consider the film to be political, just very personal.
But everyone knows, by now, that the Personal is Political and he shows us exactly how intricate that relationship is.
We don't see what went through the minds of the Phalangists or of the Palestinians, he only shows us what goes on in the mind of
As I said, watching the movie inevitably brought back memories of my own War.
The second Lebanon war.
I recognised Beirut in ruins and I recognised the aerial films that target people in order to bomb them.
Not much has changed.
That could very well have been a point.
Memory is a weird and, ha, surreal thing.
It's also a real thing, though not tangible.
The film shows how this works, how events that are experienced, history will construe differently.
There are complete scenes in the movie that reminded me of things I experienced, but I don't really want to give things away because not knowing all the details and spoilers really enhances the viewing.
One thing that is by now well known about the movie is that at the very end, just before the credits, there is actual footage of Sabra and Shatila after the massacre and it happens just as the young soldier remembers, clearly and really, what happened.
Those memories of war which for twenty years he just didn't want to remember.
It was extraordinary.
Watching the movie wasn't just cathartic for me.
With this viewing I feel I've come full circle with myself as far as my own war is concerned.
Which makes me very, very glad.
Because with the closing of this story I don't need to be haunted any more, I don't need to make sure all the time that I'm not too anxious or starting a spiral of panic.
I'm stronger than I used to be.
Even my therapist says so... and so I've reached a peak of my therapy and will no longer be needing to see her on such a regular basis... just when and if I need to.
Which makes me very, very glad.
Behind the very beautiful moving pictures is a very real and true story, history and it is unforgiving.
This movie is an anti-war film in the sense that when you identify with the soldiers, and you do, you don't want to be there just as much as them.
I have a feeling I'll carry this movie for a long time.
The trailer is really just a taste, a drop in the ocean that is this film:
I hope this didn't take too much of your time.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-21 02:41 am (UTC)I'm sorry to hear about your struggle - I can't possibly know what its like. I have known others who have gone to war, specifically in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I know it is troubling for them. Each conflict is different, of course.