Waltz with Bashir (Vals Im Bashir)

Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir's jam packed with divergent expressions of militaristic bravado condensed into an animated arsenal whose ending champions peace. Film director Ari Folman can't remember the details of his war experience and begins trying to unravel them through a series of conversations with old wartime associates. The frame becomes less opaque but he still can't remember the details of a Palestinian massacre that took place in Lebanon during the early 1980s. Searching and seeking and sleuthing and suffering. Roll away the stone, deal with it on your own. And that stone is brilliantly rolled away no doubt explaining why Waltz received so much praise last year in various film circuits. The ending's as powerful as that from Neil LaBute's In the Company of Men, a stark realistic extended yet minimalist encounter with death, serpentinely subverting the previous material's form, highlighting the necessity of peace (in Company the encounter's with life). The score contains jingoist jargon, retro rhythms, symphonic stitches, and electronic nuts. A multidimensional collapse built into an unforgettable relapse.