A source on politics, war, the Middle East, Arabic poetry, and art.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Waltz with Bashir
"Perhaps the most surprising frame of the entire movie is one of the very last: a fleeting acknowledgment of support from Israel's culture ministry and film board. Folman says that when Waltz With Bashir has played at festivals in cities around the world, local Israeli embassies have embraced it...Again and again, Folman's script stresses that the massacre was committed by Christian Phalangists (who even slashed crosses into the chests of their victims). The publicity material quotes Folman thus: "One thing for sure is that the Christian Phalangist militiamen were fully responsible for the massacre. The Israeli soldiers had nothing to do with it." That act of clarification is probably reason enough for Israeli officialdom to have welcomed the film." (thanks Laleh)