Folman's Animation Techniques In The Film Waltz With Bashir

How does the animation style used by Folman allow him to express his interviews and memories in a way to educate an audience?

The opening scene of the film Waltz with Bashir shows twenty-six salivating, growling dogs, followed by pandemonium, running angrily through a city. Director and main character, Ari Folman, uses a unique animation style in order to bring the interviews and memories to life. The animation is very reminiscent of the style used for graphic novels, this allows the repressed memories, specifically those from the Sabra and Shatila massacre to be shown. In most documentary style films, they show graphic images of real tragedies using camera footage. Often this is so disturbing it results in viewers stopping the film or not watching it in the first place. Fortunately, this dilemma is averted thanks to the animation

Folman focused on an animated style in order to better represent the memories and dreams that

Folman’s dream begins with him bathing naked in the water outside of Beirut with his comrades under the glowing light of the flares, he then slowly wades to the shore. They begin to put on their uniforms and guns and walk into the city. As they walk, Folman is confronted by a mass of citizens fleeing out. He is watching the horror and sorrow on their faces. Personally involved with the First Lebanon war and specifically a witness to the unconscionable Sabra and Shatila massacre, Folman did not know how to revisit these memories in a not traumatic way. He discovered this through interviews and in the end an animated documentary. Folman attempts to educate and audience at the same time that he provokes memories in soldiers and people that were there to help them