walzing with Bashir

great movie. fucking A

a few very differnt thougths:

1. the visuals are hit home very hard - the way the guys are dressed, the way they are armed, the stuff they are carrying, the old armored personal carriers, that is the stuff of my youth. some of the scenes take place in locations that are very recognizable. even some of the childhood scenes look like typical small israelil apartment kitchens, with the mother making typical israeli childhood food. it is all very familiar, but it is in animation - a very powerful combination.

2. a lot of the conversations, and the mannerisms of the middle aged guys is very familar - the guys remembering their youth, how they talk, is very familiar.

3. there is a reaccuring theme of "how do I know" - "shoot" "where" "how do I know? just shoot" "go take the wounded" "where" "how do I know? just take them back until you find someplace to drop them"

4. not to be an asshole, but this wasn't my group of friends, the people in this movie are sort of the low end infantry and tankers. I find a lot of the stories sort of appaling - a guy talks about running out of his tank when it comes under fire and not bringing his weapon with him, stuff like that that I know happened/happens, but I find it interesting to hear them talk about it.

5. a lot of the characters, both as kids and as middle aged guys, are very familiar. the pudgy pimply kid who then is a pudgy bald older man, the guy who is a martial artist, the guy who had a lot of potential and then left israel to sell falafel in holland, these are all pretty familiar characters.

it did generate controversy. I think that my friends, and a lot of people who are mainstream israelis enjoyed it. a lot of the people I saw writting against it are people who didn't serve at all in the military. this is sort of like Israel's catch-22 or slaughterhouse 5. I don't think Heller or Vonoguet thought that wwii was a "bad" war, but they were talking about their surialistic view of the conflict from the position of a grunt. same thing here.