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“Special, strange, and peculiarly potent... Extraordinary.” —Variety

One night in Beirut in September 1982, while Israeli soldiers secured the area, Christian militia members entered the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila and began to massacre hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians. Ari Folman was one of those Israeli soldiers, but for more than twenty years he remembered nothing of that night or of the weeks leading up to it. Then came a friend’s disturbing dream, and with it Folman’s need to excavate the truth of the war in Lebanon and answer the crucial question: what was he doing during the hours of slaughter?

Challenging the collective amnesia of friends and fellow soldiers, Folman painfully, candidly pieces together the war and his place in it. Gradually, the blankness of his mind is filled in by scenes of combat and patrol, misery and carnage, as well as dreams and hallucinations. Soldiers are haunted by inexplicable nightmares and flashbacks—snapping, growling dogs with teeth bared and eyes glowing orange; a recurring image of three young men rising naked out of the sea to drift into the Beirut battlefield. Tanks crush cars and buildings with lethal indifference; snipers pick off men on donkeys, men in cars, men drinking coffee; a soldier waltzes through a storm of bullets; rock songs fill the air, and then yellow flares. The recollections accumulate until Ari Folman arrives at Sabra and Shatila and his investigation reaches its terrible end.

The result is a gripping reconstruction, a probing inquiry into the unreliable quality of memory, and, above all, a powerful denunciation of the senselessness of all wars. Profoundly original in form and approach, Waltz with Bashir will take its place as one of the great works of wartime testimony.

Ari Folman, a Tel Aviv–based filmmaker, wrote, produced, and directed the animated documentary Waltz with Bashir. His two previous feature films, Saint Clara and Made in Israel, both received numerous Israeli academy awards, among them best film and best director for Saint Clara, which also won the People’s Choice Award at the 1996 Berlin Film Festival. In addition, he produces and writes for television, including for the Israeli series In Treatment, which was remade in the United States for HBO.

David Polonsky was the art director and chief illustrator for the animated film Waltz with Bashir. His illustrations have appeared in every major Israeli daily and magazine. He has created animated short films for Israeli television, received multiple awards for his children’s book illustrations, and teaches at Bezalel, Israel’s prestigious art academy.

A School Library Journal Best Adult Book for High School Students

One night in Beirut in September 1982, while Israeli soldiers secured the area, Christian militia members entered the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila and began to massacre hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians. Ari Folman was one of those Israeli soldiers, but for more than twenty years he remembered nothing of that night or of the weeks leading up to it. Then came a friend’s disturbing dream, and with it Folman’s need to excavate the truth of the war in Lebanon and answer the crucial question: what was he doing during the hours of slaughter?

Challenging the collective amnesia of friends and fellow soldiers, Folman painfully, candidly pieces together the war and his place in it. Gradually, the blankness of his mind is filled in by scenes of combat and patrol, misery and carnage, as well as dreams and hallucinations. Soldiers are haunted by inexplicable nightmares and flashbacks—snapping, growling dogs with teeth bared and eyes glowing orange; a recurring image of three young men rising naked out of the sea to drift into the Beirut battlefield. Tanks crush cars and buildings with lethal indifference; snipers pick off men on donkeys, men in cars, men drinking coffee; a soldier waltzes through a storm of bullets; rock songs fill the air, and then yellow flares. The recollections accumulate until Ari Folman arrives at Sabra and Shatila and his investigation reaches its terrible end.

The result is an absorbing reconstruction, an inquiry into the unreliable quality of memory, and, above all, a powerful denunciation of the senselessness of all wars. Profoundly original in form and approach, Waltz with Bashir will take its place as one of the great works of wartime testimony.

"Some memories are like the rubble in a city strafed and scarred by war. Reconnoitering into the past, we pick through the debris, eager to know old truths but fearful of what we may find. Some people choose psychoanalysis to make this treacherous journey . . . Ari Folman did it with Waltz with Bashir . . . The message of the futility of war has rarely been painted with such bold strokes."—Mary Corliss, Time magazine "Some memories are like the rubble in a city strafed and scarred by war. Reconnoitering into the past, we pick through the debris, eager to know old truths but fearful of what we may find. Some people choose psychoanalysis to make this treacherous journey . . . Ari Folman did it with Waltz with Bashir . . . Like generations of Israelis, Folman grew up in a country that is besieged by hostile neighbors even as it occupies land the Palestinians consider their own. That twin feeling, of being both prisoners and police, might give anyone restless dreams. Further, Folman's parents' history as Auschwitz survivors gives him a kinship to the detainees in the Lebanon camps. So the soldiers whose commanders did nothing to stop the 1982 massacre—while women, children and the elderly were led out of the camps begging for help—are especially susceptible to long-term remorse . . . The message of the futility of war has rarely been painted with such bold strokes."—Mary Corliss, Time

“Special, strange, and peculiarly potent . . . [Folman] spotlights a drawn version of Folman himself on a quest to remember what transpired during the 1982 massacres at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon where he served as a soldier . . . Advised by his best friend Ori Silvan, who sagely warns Folman about the ungraspable nature of memory, Folman begins a quest to find out what really happened, to himself and others, by interviewing friends and acquaintances fighting in Lebanon when the massacres happened . . . [Carmi], an old schoolfriend of Folman’s, recalls the weirdly party-like atmosphere on the transport boat over, and a bizarre dream of his own in which a beautiful giantess carried him off into the sea . . . Another man, Shmuel Frenkel, recalls gunning down an adolescent boy after the kid fired a rocket-propelled grenade at them . . . As the interlocking tales spiral the narrative closer to the events at Sabra and Shatila, the visuals become more matter-of-fact and less hallucinatory, as if Folman were trying to strip everything back to some bare essential truth."—Variety

"Like Art Spiegelman, I have an aversion to the rubric 'graphic novel.' Golden Globe-winning Israeli film Waltz with Bashir was first an animated film and now also exists as a 128-page book—novel, comic book—do you care? In both iterations it is a powerful story based on Tel Aviv filmmaker Ari Folman’s army experience in Beirut in 1982. Folman witnessed massacres perpetrated by Christian militia in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila; 20 years later he had n

About the Author

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ARI FOLMAN, a Tel Aviv–based filmmaker, wrote, produced, and directed the animated documentary Waltz with Bashir. His two previous feature films, Saint Clara and Made in Israel, both received numerous Israeli academy awards, among them best film and best director for Saint Clara, which also won the People’s Choice Award at the 1996 Berlin Film Festival. In addition, he produces and writes for television, including for the Israeli series In Treatment, which was remade in the United States for HBO.

DAVID POLONSKY was the art director and chief illustrator for the animated film Waltz with Bashir. His illustrations have appeared in every major Israeli daily and magazine. He has created animated short films for Israeli television, received multiple awards for his children’s book illustrations, and teaches at Bezalel, Israel’s prestigious art academy.