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

[Robert Naiman]

I saw the film last night and my experience of it was not that it had
the intent or likely effect of pushing away moral responsibility -
quite the contrary. There is certainly a lot of context that the film
doesn't provide - that would be true of any movie, so unless one is
opposed to making movies on these topics, that wouldn't strike me as a
meaningful criticism - but I think that it makes unmistakably clear
that the massacre was the predictable outcome of Israeli actions and
that as soon as Israeli actions changed the massacre stopped.
Furthermore, the movie draws direct lines between the massacre and
Auschwitz which are not the least bit subtle or understated.

Is it suspicious that the film is "popular"? First of all, it's not
_that_ popular - the theatre I saw it in last night was virtually
empty. It has received critical acclaim which I think is richly
deserved. But I wouldn't doubt that part of the acclaim of the film
may be political in the sense that it's a "safe" window on Israeli
atrocities because it's an Israeli film. If so, would that be so
terrible? I don't think so. The creation of "safe" windows, it seems
to me, is a big part of the work of activism, trying to bring that
which is known by one group of people to the attention of another
group of people...

There are efforts to show the film in Lebanon, despite that fact that,
like all Israeli movies, it is officially banned there. One activist
involved in such efforts said that when the movie comes out on DVD, it
will be pirated all over Lebanon the next day...

On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 10:53 AM, David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> 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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>
>
>
>



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