Cannes 2008: “WALTZ WITH BASHIR” trailers online and they’re gorgeous!!

Posted by Ard Vijn at 2:54pm.

Posted in Trailer Alerts , Documentary, Animation, Middle East, Cannes 2008.

“Animated documentary”.

That’s two words you don’t often see combined, at least not when it’s about a full-length feature film. “Persepolis” would be the closest example, the only one I could mention. Yet there is currently another one of these gunning for the main prize in this year’s Cannes Gold Palm competition.

Yesterday the Dutch television networks showed some clips from the Cannes festival, including an interview with director Ari Folman who just finished “Waltz With Bashir”. It’s an animated documentary from Israel, and when some clips of it were shown my jaw hit the floor. This thing looks absolutely stunning. It consists mostly of real footage drawn over (rotoscoped, you might say), but the artists have allowed themselves much liberty with colors, lighting and the way faces are shown.

The end result is mesmerizing, and falls somewhere between “Renaissance” and the Charles Burns segment of “Fear(s) of the Dark”.

In the film, the director tries to answer the question why he cannot remember much from his military service days in Lebanon, back in the early eighties. When he starts investigating what it was he exactly did, visiting old friends and places, his memories come flooding back to him but to say they’re not pretty is the understatement of the year…

Already called one of the best war movies ever, “Waltz With Bashir” premiers in Cannes. Only time will tell if this praise is correct but DAMN I’m stoked to see this.

You can find trailers at the (beautiful) Waltz With Bashir website, and you should check them out.
Seriously, you should!

Reader Comments

Kurt Halfyard 05/18/2008 @ 3:10pm

Actually Ard, the closest examples would be The Chicago 10 or I Shot Tony Blair!

I was reading all the love given to Waltz with Bashir from Cannes over at Daily Greencine and really anticipate this film. Boy does it look gorgeous!
Ard Vijn 05/18/2008 @ 3:18pm

Thanks Kurt, I must check those out.

I wonder how this will fare with the Palm jury, seeing as how one of the jurors this year is actually Marjane Satrapi, of “Persepolis” fame.
methosb 05/19/2008 @ 2:26am

Is this “real footage” meaning purposely scripted and filmed footage telling a true story or actual real documentary footage. After watching the trailer it doesn’t seem possible that most of that could be actual real documentary footage of the real people in the act so to speak.
Ard Vijn 05/19/2008 @ 7:16am

Methosb, With “real footage” I meant purposely scripted and filmed footage telling a story. Not even necessarily a true one, as the director also put visions, nightmares and hallucinations in.
He films his returning memories, which are on occasion hazy and tainted, and this was the very reason he chose animation. As he said in the interview: “Otherwise you’d just see some old guys talking all the time”.

Actually, near the end there is some real documentary footage in the film, but that hasn’t been reworked as animation: that part is shown “as is”, without any embellishment. Ari Folman thought that tinkering with it would have been disrespectful to the victims in that piece of footage.
Michael Guillen 05/19/2008 @ 9:29pm

This is the one film I am already anticipating at Toronto.