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I often feel short with words when exposed to tragic events from recent history. The retelling is usually taken a step or two beyond a rehash of facts to also reveal one’s effort to cope. Waltz with Bashir, a recent Israeli film making the independent film festival circuit, utilizes the artistic freedom of animation to explore and break through the director’s own memories and psycho-barriers surrounding the Sabra and Shatila Massacre.
In Hebrew, the film remains personal to those involved. Additionally, animation transforms into real analog footage in the closing minutes. The audio later goes silent to enhance the reality of what the director Ari Folman, and now you, has witnessed.
Also worth noting is another film to spur a frenzy of recreational reading of history. [thank you Wikipedia] Months ago someone showed me Machuca, based on and during the elected communist government of Chile. But that’s another story from another time.