tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12917687.post9168815657056281836..comments2009-04-14T09:58:34.310-04:00Matt Zoller Seitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16921028537989131859noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12917687.post-86779842997207490122009-04-14T09:52:00.000-04:002009-04-14T09:52:00.000-04:00I have to disagree with the final assessment of "Waltz With Bashir". First, I think that the animation was used to magnificent effect in that it was critical to lending a first-hand sensation to what would have otherwise been a standard "let's sit and talk about our feelings" documentary (which still would have held some interest). By using animation, the director was able to move more seamlessly between present day and 1982. I must say, however, that I do feel that he took too much liberty with replaying his own dream sequence and should have limited it to perhaps only one or two depictions within the entire film.<br /><br />The surrealist sequences were definitely surreal enough, at least for me. Remember that much of those sequences were intended to replicate the dream states of the director and some of his former brothers-in-arms. Too much surrealism would have warped the film into a moving depiction of some lost Salvador Dali painting, and any meaning would have been lost amidst the mire. <br /><br />The final cutaway from animation to live-captured news footage of the Sabra and Shatila aftermath was also particularly effective. It served as more of a juxtaposition to the loss of innocence portrayed in the aging Israeli ex-soldiers by showing an event that was pivotal to that loss, along with the human factor involved with the IDF's troubling indifference to the inhabitants of those villages. For me, this ending was somewhat reminiscent of and equally as powerful as the final scene in Egoyan's "Ararat".Jeremy Szczepanskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12854298643019973280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12917687.post-63358825753439795992009-01-08T11:41:43.399-05:002009-01-08T11:41:43.399-05:00RE: Klaatu/Christ<BR/><BR/><I>Edmund North had it in his notes, but never bothered to tell Wise. Well, he really didn’t need to know, did he? And if he had known, he might have made it more obvious. Although giving him the human name Carpenter makes it fairly obvious.</I><BR/><BR/>And you'd think the resurrection scene might have tipped him off as well (LOL).<BR/><BR/>Of course, I may be a bit hard on Wise because of my axe to grind with him over his complicity (innocently or not) in gutting <I>The Magnificent Ambersons</I>.Matt Maulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12786715057322458327noreply@blogger.com