MIT Lecture Series Committee

Rated R
90 minutes

view trailer

format: 35mm

Waltz with Bashir (2008)

Co-sponsored by Hillel, the Israeli student association and the MIT Students for Israel.

2008 Academy Award Nominations: Best Foreign Language Film

Director Ari Folman's animated, quasi-documentary Waltz With Bashir follows the filmmaker's emotional attempt to decipher the horrors that unfolded one night in September of 1982, when Christian militia members massacred more than 3,000 Palestinian refugees in the heart of Beirut as Israeli soldiers surrounded the area. Folman was one of those soldiers, but nearly 20 years after the fact, his memories of that night remain particularly hazy. After hearing an old friend recall a vivid nightmare in which he is pursued by 26 ferocious dogs, Folman and his friend conclude that the dream must somehow relate to that fateful mission during the first Lebanon War. When Folman realizes that his recollections regarding that period in his life seem to have somehow been wiped clean, he travels the world to interview old friends and fellow soldiers from the war. Later, as Folman's memory begins to emerge in a series of surreal images, he begins to uncover a truth about himself that will haunt him for the rest of his days. [www.allmovie.com]

In Hebrew with English subtitles.

The best movie of 2008? The most revealing war film ever made? The greatest animated feature to come out of Israel? All these descriptions could apply to Waltz With Bashir.
      -- Jonathan Curiel, San Francisco Chronicle. Read this review.