Waltz With Bashir

Told with visual playfulness and an hypnotic soundtrack, this is a story so painful that the people who saw these events with their own eyes have suppressed the memory. Waltz with Bashir starts with a former Israeli soldier asking himself why he does not have any memories of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon in 1982. This is the point of departure for a recounting of his own story. Through conversations with former fellow soldiers the repressed images return.

Waltz with Bashir is a rare thing: an autobiographical animated documentary. Director Ari Folman has developed a unique form of expression that captures the soldiers’ experience of war as something that does not really concern them but is rather a game they observe from the outside. The film was in competition for the Palme d’Or at Cannes and has astounded and impressed critics as well as audiences. tsr

Seminar in connection with this film:
Thursday October 16th 17:30 Vika 2
WAR TRAUMAS AND MEMORY LOSS
Conversation: Psychiatrist, author and film critic Finn Skårderud and Norwegian UN veteran Geir O. Stamnes