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BATON! trailer.

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Waltz with Bashir Review

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I fell upon this video over two years ago. The first time I watched it I wondered just how high the creator must have been. I still wonder, but I have to say I think it’s quite genius. It appears it was even aired on Nickelodeon, but it also seems it only had a single showing. I was disappointed there were no other episodes, because there’s plenty to love:

However, there is still hope! Wikipedia says this was leaked two years before it was meant to be shown on TV. Two years?! Really? Anyway, looks like it may be airing at the end of 2009 or early 2010. If excitetude were the color blue, I’d be blue all over. (Oh, and be sure not to miss the underwear and the leopard skin during the fight scene.)

The world would (probably?) be a better place if people stopped watching lame crap and spent that time instead watching things that actually make them think, or at least try to think.  After Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, Paprika, and Bashir, I must say I’m pretty stoked for Metropia.

from Twitch:

Dark, gloomy, and riddled with existential angst and questions about the nature of reality, this thing has an incredible voice cast – Juliette Lewis, Vincent Gallo, Udo Kier, Stellan Skarsgaard – couple with a unique animation technique developed specifically for this film that gives the characters an eerie, unsettling sort of realism.  Could we be fortunate enough to find that Waltz With Bashir and $9.99 were just the beginning of a coming wave of intelligent, not-for-children animation?  It looks that way.

I recently saw a film called Waltz with Bashir, directed by Ari Folman.  The animation was a provocative visual and audio experience that I was excited about for awhile; however, I was unprepared for the intensity of its message.  It reveals something of the Israeli political consciousness–which may be relevant to the current state of affairs there–while neither placing blame on nor apologizing for Israel’s actions at Sabra and Shatila.

From an interview with the director over at Twitch:

It took four years for Israeli director Ari Folman to complete his animated documentary Waltz With Bashir, which was entered in the competition for the Palme d’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. Though—despite predictions—it did not win that honor, Waltz With Bashir went on to win six awards from the Israeli Film Academy, including Best Picture. It had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and its US premiere at the 46th New York Film Festival. The film has been submitted as Israel’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards, as well as for Best Animated Feature. Concerned with the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre, the film came highly praised at its Cannes premiere as one that would “leave its mark forever on the ethics of war films in general” (Screen Daily). Variety hailed it as “something special, strange and peculiarly potent.” Time magazine asserted that “the message of the futility of war has rarely been painted with such bold strokes.”