Memory as dynamic in "Waltz with Bashir"

A young man floats on an ocean. His face atop the surface is clearly distinguishable... His expression is that of a devastated calm. Powerlessness emanates from his eyes, as below his neck we see the rest of his body distorted by the waves of water on the surface... his body seems to become one with the darkness of the depths of the ocean. The clarity of who he is, rests upon an endless abyss of uncertainties where others float or sink depending on differing degrees of privilege. The glimmers of light that bathe him from above are not those of the moon, but those of a bombardment that rains upon Lebanon in 1982. And yet, this is not 1982... he was not floating on the sea during the events of 1982... he is not that image, and the waves that distort his body are not water... it is all a drawing and the effect of an animator. And yet, this image does tell us a lot about how memory deals with those intense black holes of experience produced by violence and brutality.

Ten years ago, Ari Folman released his animated documentary "Waltz with Bashir", in which he explores the emergence of lost memories about his involvement in the 1982 Lebanon war. The return of the oppressed in this narrative forces the narrator/main character/film maker to revise the notion of who a perpetrator is. Multiple layers of memory seem to be put between the contemporary account of events and the traumatic event itself: memory appears as dynamic, and the film narrative structure and animated styles thematized this reflection about individual and collective forms of memory. Explore some of the layers of memory by clicking on the links embedded in the image below.