[Peace-discuss] "Waltz with Bashir" at the Art Feb 27.

[David Green]

Well Bob, there's no way to evaluate a movie that claims to be based on historical events without understanding as much as is possible the contextual truth about those events. I'd be very surprised if the movie does that, concentric circles aside. Israeli "anguish" in no way implies honest self-criticism, in fact it implies the opposite--the sentimentalization of political criminality, the sublimation of moral responsibility and the denial of its consequences. Israeli "anguish" always assumes moral superiority and hand-washing at the same time. At best it sounds to me like what during Watergate was called a "modified, limited, hangout." It's suspect that it's popular. A film that was genuinely critical of Israel, with implications made clear, would not get a Hollywood award. It's not for me to tell people to see it or not to. Personally, I won't, on principle, unless it's necessary preparation for a public event critically discussing it.

DG



----- Original Message ----
From: Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>
To: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2009 12:13:14 AM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] "Waltz with Bashir" at the Art Feb 27.

The Israeli film "Waltz with Bashir" is at the Art starting next
Friday. It uses (mainly) animation to depict the director's real-life
story of recovering his suppressed memory as an IDF soldier of the
IDF-supervised Phalangist massacres at the Palestinian refugee camps
of Sabra and Chatilla during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon by
interviewing fellow Israeli veterans.

I strongly recommend seeing it. It tries in a new way to tell this
important story, and that would be enough; but the film is also a
broader attack on "concentric circles" of complicity in atrocities,
and as such, has obviously a much wider scope than just the events of
Lebanon 1982...

-- 
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
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