2 - "Waltz with Bashir" and Realism

Waltz with Bashir and Realism
By Gabriel, Christopher & Karissa

In class during week 2 we covered the topics of realism, memory, scopophilia versus epistephilia and Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir. These themes are also present in Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's Persepolis, another animated documentary that takes place in the Middle-East. Both films also deal with war and perception, and they can cause us to reflect on issues that are still around today.

Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008, Israel, 90 min.) & Realism - Where Imagination meets Animation


The documentary film Waltz with Bashir by Ari Folman is a film about Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Surprisingly this documentary covers events of this invasion not by historical records, but based on the memories of ex-Israeli soldiers who took part in this invasion. The reason for this odd representation of this war is because of how Ari Folman (who was a soldier during this war) has forgotten most of the events that transpired during the war. So he locates some of his old friends from the war to try and put the pieces of his scattered memories together. An interview with Folman can be seen below.

This film is very unique. Animation is not a very accepted characteristic of the norms and conventions of documentary films. When watching a documentary film it is mostly preferred to see live action filming. A documentary film is intended to document real life, but the usage of animation contradicts this. However, reality is portrayed efficiently in this film as we will see later on the blog. Animation does not weaken the effect of a documentary film it actually enhances its effectiveness on the viewer by the manipulation of the environment by the director. How is animation useful in documentary film? Deciding to make a film in animation is very cost efficient. The cost of making a live action documentary of a war would have most likely made Ari Folman broke even with the large response from the film. Even if he had shot a million dollar live action documentary with payed actors, props and other professionals to do the war sequences, the film might not have had such a positive response. As was discussed in our class discussion, animation allows the director to form the perfect environment. Animation is the ultimate form of creativity in film. It allows one to create exactly what they envision in their imagination. The dream sequences in particular are perfect of example of the advantages in using animation.

Although this film is showing the events of the invasion of Lebanon, Ari Folman says that for him this film was about memory. What can be said about memory after watching this film? One of the things discussed in class was that memory is not controlled by our own will. Instinctively memory can disappear. In the case of Ari Folman, his memory was repressed after being involved in such a traumatic war. Also, Folman talks about the psychological theory of manipulated memory, which how a suggestion of a fake event in a person's life that is presented to the person can make the individual actually believe he or she that that event actually happened. This is shown in the film by the carnival scene where Ari Folman's friend is explaining this psychological phenomena.

The theme for this week was reality. What is reality? Is it something that can be portrayed on film? Isn't that the function of documentary films? So does that mean that this film does not portray reality. It is only after watching Waltz with Bashir does the reality of this film smack you right in the face. When the animation stops and actual footage of the massacre appears we realize that the animation portrays reality of the situation. For example: there is a scene where the soldiers are in a mansion that was raided by the Israeli army and they are just hanging out and one soldier is even watching porn. This scene portrays the reality of warfare. Like in many films about war, directors focus more on the fighting and not what the soldiers do between fights. Reality in film is not always live action, yes the things seen in live-action are real, but reality is what is actually happening.

Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud, 2007, France, 95 min.)

Persepolis is a 2007 France-made film, directed by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi. The film is based on a graphic novel, also written by Satrapi, an autobiography about her life from her time as a child during the Iranian Revolution to her adult life. It shows her family and how they lived during and after the Revolution as well as Satrapi’s exile into Europe as a teenager. Though she returned as an adult, it was not long before she left for France again, being unable to readjust to Iran’s strict, female-dominating laws. The film stands out because it is from the perspective of a woman, and women are not usually given a voice in the Middle-East. Satrapi was a young girl for the first part of the film, and also presented the simplistic point of view of a child on both political and social problems.

The main issues covered in this film were Iranian politics, the influence of western culture and extremism in the Middle-East. Satrapi, or Marji as she called herself in the film, was a young girl during the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s. Iran had been under control of a leader supported by the U.S.A. and England in return for easier access to oil. Marji was taught in school that the Shah (Iran’s ruler) was chosen by God, and only after the revolution began did her parents tell her the truth. Her
uncle had even been locked up as a political prisoner for opposing the government. For more information on the Iranian Revolution of 1978 and 79, see here.

The relationship between Iran and the U.S.A. and England caused western influence to remain, even after the fundamentalist government took over. This is shown by Marji listening to Western singing groups like the Bee Gees or Michael Jackson. She would have to do so secretly because the government, and even citizens, would try to take them away to preserve their culture. It shows a cultural struggle between tradition and western society in Iran. This East versus West conflict is also present when Marji goes to live in Austria. Because she is Iranian, she is treated differently by the people there, at worst being perceived as ugly and savage, and at best being considered ‘exotic’ by her Austrian friends. Either way, she is viewed as standing out and not quite fitting in with the rest of the ‘Easterners’.

Extremism was also present in the film. After the Shah was deposed, the new government was a fundamentalist Islamic group. Women were forced to be completely covered except for their face. Alcohol, gatherings of both men and women and anything western were completely banned. As a young girl, Marji spoke out against her teachers who were enforcing this, causing her parents to send her to Austria for her own safety. Returning as an adult, she found that not much had changed. She was not allowed to see her boyfriend in public, and when caught she was threatened with being whipped.

Persepolis is animated in a style similar to the graphic novel it is based on. Stills of the film appear almost identical to the graphic novel panels. It is a black and white cartoon, with comic-style transitions. An angry character’s head might swell up, for example. Though it is autobiographical, linear and sometimes serious, it often blends in humour.

Film.

Graphic novel. If it were not for the writing, could you tell the difference?

What is real and what is being exaggerated in the film is clear because of the animation style. It stays plain during parts that probably really happened to Marji, while other scenes are not. Marji ages all at once in the film, going from around twelve to twenty years old in seconds. There are also a dream sequence, where Marji speaks with God and Karl Marx, which obviously never physically happened. The scenes with her family and her friends seemed more realistic because nobody ever turned to the camera or acted strangely.

The film plays off both scopophilia and epistephilia, with the content appealing to knowledge and the format appealing to sensation. The issues in the film, the sexism, the extremism and the relationship between the Middle-East and the west are all issues that we recognize as existing still today. The pleasure of looking comes from the style of the movie, the funny, cartoony look, Marji’s dreams and the cartoony moments such as when she literally swells up in anger. Marji’s childish perspective also adds to the pleasure of looking, because it lets us see the issues with a naïve perspective that brings humour and silliness to otherwise serious moments.

The visual style of the characters and most of the scenes are based on Marji’s memories of the experiences she had. There was a scene where two older women caught her buying an Iron Maiden CD. They were tall, mean and bent over. They appear that way because that was how Satrapi remembered them. The whole film was based only on her memories, but that does not mean it is any less true.

How are we Affected?

Through films, we can learn and experience various kinds of emotions. We see how people have to deal with certain aspects of their lives, how they overcome their fears, or they can teach us something they feel strongly about. Films have the power to let our minds analyze how we really feel about something, and to rethink what our opinion is based on the topic of the film. Seeing something visually can make it clearer to understand and grasp. Waltz with Bashir allows us to learn not only about the film, but ourselves as well.

We learned just how much the past can haunt us. As we saw in the movie, Folman struggles with his past and gets numerous nightmares. For example, we can experience something like this in everyday life, like if something bad happened to us as a child, those bad memories can be with us forever. We can repress them, but they can still linger. In the documentary, we see how Folman realizes that he can’t remember his past during the war. He has a lot of trouble trying to remember what exactly happened, which leads him to asking questions to the men who fought in the war with him. Because he could not answer them himself. This teaches us that we cannot always trust our memory. At times our memory can play tricks on us. Due to the way we want to see and think of the world as maybe being different from true reality, our memory can alter itself to protect and shield us. Can we even really be sure if something happened at all? The film literally challenges our vision of the world, suggesting that what we remember may not be what happened.

In the film, Folman lacked accuracy. He did not know the difference between his imagination and the truth, the actual events he went through. Knowing the truth means that there are facts and evidence to prove it. In society, we can notice how facts can be broken as they get spread around by multiple people. This gives us the benefit of the doubt because it makes us think “what is really the truth?”. It is as if society is playing broken telephone. “Throughout history and today, truth has been twisted and sculpted to fit the needs of certain people or groups. Even if one is not trying to misrepresent something, there are unintentional societal, cultural or personal biases portrayed”. What this quote from here means is that by living in a society full of unfaithful people and having to doubt what someone says, is the reason why we question our memory and what really is the truth. For example, on the news, we hear all kinds of stories that can frighten us, yet many of them are exaggerated to an extent. If you were to see the accident or incident happen with your own eyes, you’d know it is the real. One such story on the news recently, is of the Arab Spring, which has much in common with a central issue in Persepolis.

The Iranian Revolution that happened during the events of Persepolis are similar to the wave of revolutions that have been occurring in Middle-Eastern countries recently, also called the Arab Spring. Both conflicts were littered with violence but the revolting sides ultimately hoped that it would be for the better. While the Iranian Revolution was able to get rid of their dictator, the Shah, the Arab Spring was likewise able to free (or in the process of freeing) the people living under oppressive regimes and allowed them to set up a new government that they believed would be fairer. For a more in-depth look at the events of the Arab Spring, see here.

Waltz with Bashir and Persepolis both demonstrated the effectiveness of animation in documentary, that even the unreal can present the real if the director wishes it. It also allows for a seamless transition between the reality of the people in the film, and their dreams and memories. Both films showed war, violence and other things that may be difficult to discuss or see, but were able to make them easier to present to an audience. We are able to not just recognize these issues, but we can also be immersed in the beautiful world the directors saw in their minds. They can also make us think about the nature of reality, how we perceive it or how we remember it, and teach us to be better critical thinkers about how we see our environment.