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

[Robert Naiman]

A wonderful idea. Of course, anyone who doesn't see the movie is going
to be at a disadvantage in the discussion... :)


On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 11:32 AM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
> Maybe it would be worthwhile for AWARE to sponsor a public forum critically
> discussing it (and not as a foreign artifact but as a question of US foreign
> policy).  Recording it for UPTV means we could take advantage of their
> upcoming web distribution. --CGE
>
>
> David Green 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