Waltz with Bashir: A Lebanon War Story

AUTHOR: Folman, Ari

ARTIST: David Polonsky (illustrator); Ya’ara Buchman (illustrator); Michael Faust (illustrator); Asaf Hanuka (illustrator); Tomer Hanuka (illustrator)

PUBLISHER: Metropolitan Books

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 2009

Publication History

Originally conceived and released as an Israeli animated documentary film in 2008 before being transformed into a graphic novel, Waltz with Bashir was published in English in 2009 by Henry Holt under the imprint Metropolitan Books. Metropolitan Books was established in 1995 to bring the public more controversial and unconventional titles in categories such as politics, current affairs, foreign fiction, and graphic novels. Waltz with Bashir also has been published in several other languages, including Hebrew, French, Spanish, German, and Danish.

Ari Folman, an Israeli writer, director, and producer for award-winning films and television series, is best known for his work in the documentary genre. Folman won Israeli Film Academy awards for the animation Waltz with Bashir and his feature film Saint Clara.

Artist David Polonsky has dabbled in many areas including portraits, sculpture, and illustrations (featured in every major newspaper and magazine in Israel). He has received numerous awards for his children’s book illustrations and has also animated short films for television.

Plot

Waltz with Bashir is a nonfiction wartime testimony told through the eyes of filmmaker Ari Folman, who served as an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier in 1982 during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990). The graphic novel specifically centers on the September massacre of approximately three thousand Palestinian citizens in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Historically, Israel was allied with the Lebanese Christian soldiers (known as the Phalangists) in order to occupy Lebanon up to and including Beirut with the aim of preventing Palestinian missile attacks against northern towns in Israel. Israeli minister of defense Ariel Sharon’s secret motive was to strengthen the force against Israel’s enemy Syria and maintain control by electing Bashir Gemayel, senior commander of the Phalangists, as the new Lebanese president. After Gemayel’s appointment, he was assassinated by an unknown party assumed to be the Palestinians, the Syrians, or a collaboration of both forces. The Phalangists then conducted a three-day slaughter in Sabra and Shatila in retaliation for losing their beloved leader. Under the claim of purging the camps of Palestinian combat fighters—who were forced to evacuate weeks earlier—the militia members vengefully murdered remaining refugee occupants while the Israeli soldiers shot flares to provide light. The victims were largely ordinary citizens and included women, the elderly, and children. Although the Israeli soldiers did not officially carry out the Palestinian massacre, the government was held liable for not doing enough to stop the horror that occurred.

More than twenty years after the massacre, Folman must finally face his role in the slaughter. Folman’s friend Boaz Rein-Buskila describes a recurring nightmare of being hunted by a pack of dogs that were killed in the massacre, prompting Folman’s first vision. Picturing himself as a young man rising naked out of the water with two fellow Israeli soldiers, Folman realizes that although he remembers the basics of his military service, his time in Beirut is a black hole. Folman decides to reconstruct his repressed memories by interviewing other Israeli soldiers and witnesses to the massacre and by trying to comprehend (through the commentary of experts) how such selective amnesia could occur. During this process, his encounters demonstrate a similar trend since the other participants have hallucinations and nightmares related to the war but lack many details of their real contributions. For example, his friend Carmi Cna’an vividly recounts a dream where a beautiful woman swims to his military boat, carries him into the water, and takes his virginity. At that distance, Cna’an then watches as the boat explodes in flames and engulfs his military friends. However, despite being in Beirut and remembering instances of shooting like a maniac at unknown targets, he cannot remember his specific involvement in the massacre itself. As the interviews continue, Folman begins to dredge up real war memories such as transporting injured soldiers, his twenty-four-hour leave while trying to win back his former girlfriend, and his flight to Beirut after President Gemayel was assassinated. Ultimately, Folman cannot tell whether he helped fire the flares while the massacre was occurring or whether he merely watched them light up the sky, but the graphic novel ends by illustrating Folman’s true location on the outskirts of the camps and providing photographic examples of the carnage he would have witnessed as aftermath.

Characters

•Ari Folman, the protagonist, is a middle-aged man who served in the Israel Defense Forces at the age of nineteen during the Lebanese civil war. Although on active duty while the massacre took place, he cannot recall his role in the slaughter. Years later, he attempts to fill in the missing scenes by interviewing witnesses to the Beirut invasion.

•Boaz Rein-Buskila is Folman’s friend of thirty years. His recurring nightmare of being hunted by a pack of dogs—that ask for him by name to kill him—stems from his service in the Israel Defense Forces when he killed these animals so that the Palestinian soldiers would not be alerted and escape.

•Ori Sivan is Folman’s childhood best friend, and Folman frequently confides in him and seeks his advice. He explains the workings of memory and how people create false memories or block out traumatic experiences.

•Carmi Cna’an is Folman’s old friend. The two men grew apart after the war’s end and his emigration twenty years earlier. Described as a genius with unlimited potential, he remembers marching into Beirut but cannot recall the massacre.

•Roni Dayag is a biologist and former IDF soldier. Considered the classic antihero, he should have taken over when his tank commander was shot by a sniper. Unable to retaliate, he hides and eventually swims across the sea back to his regiment. He is plagued by survivor’s guilt and feels like a deserter.

•Shmuel Frenkel is a champion fighter in Dennis Survival jujitsu and was Folman’s cabin mate during the war. He performs a “waltz” in front of a huge poster of Lebanese president Bashir Gemayel: His motions appear dance-like, but he is actually shooting at Palestinian snipers and avoiding their gunfire.

•Professor Zahava Solomon is a world-renowned expert on war trauma. She explains dissociative events to Folman, wherein people who experience trauma perceive themselves outside the situation.

•Ron Ben-Yishai is considered Israel’s foremost war correspondent. He telephones Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon to call for an end to the Palestinian slaughter, an ignored plea. He witnesses the aftermath by following the massacre survivors back into the camps.

•Dror Harazi is a former IDF soldier who was stationed on the front line outside the camps during the massacre and reported the massacre to his commander. He provides an account of the Beirut invasion.

Artistic Style

Waltz with Bashir is neatly arranged in rectangles and square panels. The only notable deviation from this pattern occurs during Ari’s interview with the combat trauma expert, in which the overlapping, slanted arrangement mimics the nightmarish content of the pictures and how one’s shield from true memory can dissolve into insanity. For both background and character depiction, Folman encouraged illustrator Polonsky, who completed 80 percent of the illustrations, to be as realistic as possible—including drawing the interviewees and other figures as they appear in real life—to foster emotional attachment in the audience. Since the subject matter is serious, however, Polonsky did not want his illustrations to appear too pretty and would frequently draw with his nondominant hand to avoid this result. In addition, in order to maintain audience focus on the realistic images, the dialogue is written in a simple font contained within unobtrusive, rectangular text boxes.

Although the illustrations all use a similar realistic style, there are three important variations. The most noticeable concerns the dream sequences, which are more vibrantly colored, contain unrealistic proportions, and seem more fantastical overall. Second, Folman’s own memories appear less realistic since the figures are more exaggerated, strange, or cartoonlike in their appearance and facial expressions, heightening the unreliability of his own memory. Finally, as the story line becomes increasingly dark and violent when the massacre is addressed, the illustrations shift to dichromatic orange and black hues. This drastic change underscores the melancholy, horrific atmosphere until readers encounter photographs of the dead bodies. By purposefully concluding with photographer Robin Moyer’s real-life images of the innocent Palestinian victims, Folman emphasizes the reality of the massacre and leaves readers to ponder the senseless destruction of war. Throughout the book, Polonsky uses the points of view of both Israelis and Palestinians—facing a Palestinian RPG missile, looking through binoculars as Phalangists shoot the refugees, and walking with Palestinian mourners through the camps—and this ending successfully shocks readers, forcefully reminding them of the brutal nature of life and humankind.

Themes

Folman continually addresses the unreliability of human memory, which forms the foundation of the plot since he begins interviewing other Israelis after having his first wartime flashback: rising naked out of the sea. Unable to determine this memory’s accuracy or his true involvement during the massacre, Folman attempts to uncover his repressed memories and grasp how they become distorted or lost: Memory is dynamic (filling in false details or eliminating true ones) in order to shield one from trauma and harsh truths. The interview process reveals that Folman’s selective amnesia is not unique. Many others involved in the war can recall only snippets of their participation. In times of horror, such disassociation from reality seems to be the only way to move forward and continue daily life.

Folman also highlights the senselessness of war. Rather than the glamour and glory presented in many American war films, Waltz with Bashir is told through the eyes of young, naïve common soldiers linked by the uncertainty of where they are going, who they are firing at, and why they are taking action. The men often fire frantically at an unseen enemy simply to have some perceived purpose. This theme is made especially apparent when Brigadier General Amos Yaron of the Israel Defense Forces puts a stop to the Palestinian massacre with only a few, brief sentences. Had the Israeli government heeded incoming reports earlier rather than waiting for eyewitness accounts, thousands of innocent victims could have been spared.

Impact

The graphic novel Waltz with Bashir achieved its status as a result of the success of Folman’s animated documentary. Since the film received abundant critical praise, it seemed logical that the film (influenced stylistically by graphic novels) should be transformed into a graphic novel itself. Both formats have appealed to audiences based upon timely subject matter, unique perspective—trauma is based upon seeing the enemy’s dead bodies rather than witnessing the killing of one’s fellow soldiers—and the ambiguous political message where viewers individually interpret Israel’s accountability in the camps.

Conversely, both the film and the graphic novel have been called propaganda for not illustrating enough Israeli responsibility for the massacre. Such critics see both works as an effort to depict the Israelis (rather than the Palestinians) as the victims, as they were shooting and crying during the event. Despite such accusations, the graphic novel leaves readers with images of the massacre’s true victims. These images put both Folman’s personal story and the animation into clear perspective, emphasizing that despite the use of an artistic style oftentimes reserved for fictional accounts, the slaughter of thousands of innocent people truly did occur.

Films

Waltz with Bashir. Directed by Ari Folman. Brigit Folman Film Gang, 2008. This animated documentary features all the characters voiced by the real interviewees, with the exceptions of Boaz Rein-Buskila and Carmi Cna’an, whose voices are dubbed by actors and whose real appearances were altered for anonymity. Since the graphic novel is a reverse adaptation of the film and both were created by Folman and Polonsky, the book differs only subtly. First, the dialogue had to be simplified to fit the pages, but the story line is the same in flow, mood, and ideas presented. Likewise, the film extends the carnage in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, using approximately fifty seconds of varied live footage shots for increased impact, whereas the book only has five photographs of the massacre. The film has received numerous international awards as well as six Israeli Film Academy awards (Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Editing, Art Direction, Sound).

Further Reading

Sacco, Joe. Footnotes in Gaza: A Graphic Novel (2009).

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Palestine (2002).

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis (2003).

Bibliography

Mansfield, Natasha. “Loss and Mourning: Cinema’s ‘Language’ of Trauma in Waltz with Bashir.” Wide Screen 2, no. 1 (June, 2010).

Stewart, Garrett. “Screen Memory in Waltz with Bashir.” Film Quarterly 63, no. 3 (Spring, 2010): 58-62.

Yosef, Raz. “War Fantasies: Memory, Trauma, and Ethics in Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 9, no. 3 (November, 2010): 311-326.