Waltz With Bashir (2008 Cannes Film Festival)

Writer/director Ari Folman adopted a graphic novel animated approach to addressing his haunting but vague recollections of the 1982 Israeli Army invasion of Beirut that he took part in, and witnessed the massacre of Palestinian civilians at the hands of the Christian Phalangist militia. Informed by confessional discussions with friends, the film gradually connects his abstract visions and short-circuited memory clips toward fleshing out the traumatic blocked events. Visually inventive and viscerally sincere, "Waltz With Bashir" is a cathartic and unforgettable film.

(A-)