Waltz With Bashir

You don't see a lot of animated documentaries these days and truth be told, Waltz With Bashir's style reminded me a lot of Ralph Bakshi. Computerized rotoscoping, perhaps?

This is an odd, almost feckless movie, about a man who was involved in the Lebanon War of 1982 and the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. But he doesn't remember it at all. He just has this dream of being chased by 26 angry dogs. He goes to find other people who were there, and learn their stories--none of them remember being at the massacre either.

The opening scenes feature two different instances of soldiers shooting (a lot, for a long period) with no idea what they're shooting at. There seems to be no commander anywhere. We saw this in Apocalypse Now, of course, but in that case, we were deep in enemy territory. In this case, it's like they walked down the street. But I guess these wars do take place in small spaces.

I didn't think the IDF was that disorganized. But, as I said, this is supposed to be semi-autobiographical.

It's sort of indicative of the random stories being told. From what I can tell, the Israelis invaded Lebanon allied with the Christian Phalangists after the assassination of Lebanese President-Elect Bashir Gemayel. The massacre occurred as Israeli forces invaded and the Phalangists used them as cover to go into certain areas and slaughter civilians.

In stereotypical Jewish fashion, the Israelis--who from the looks of things couldn't have stopped this if they tried--feel really, really guilty about this. I mean, I'm guessing we won't see any parallel film come out of Palestine. (Though in fairness to the Palestinians, their cameras are all tied up staging inflammatory news stories.) And it's pretty clear from the story that the terrorists they were trying to kill loved to hang out with the civilians. (I have to investigate the historical precedent for the common Israeli tactic of "OK, we're going to attack you, so if you're not the enemy, you'll want to be running away now." I wonder if any other nation has done that routinely?)

But war is heck and leads to a lot of morally and ethically ambiguous situations that can be traumatic and haunt you for decades after--kind of the same theme as Gran Torino, actually, though Torino turns that on its head--and this movie shows us the various hecks that the various Israeli soldiers endure.

It's pretty effective, I suppose. The Boy was fascinated and unsure, but he seems to be trending more favorable toward as time goes on.

I didn't check the parental stuff beforehand, so I was a bit surprised when there was a scene of an Israeli commander issuing orders while watching hard-core porn. You probably want to keep that in mind before showing it to the kids. I mean, if the graphic violence wasn't sufficient. There are also some surreal nude scenes.

It wasn't boring. It's probably worth re-watching, even. But I think I was put off a bit by the introspectiveness of it.

This is the only one of the foreign language films up for the Oscar I've seen this year. I might also go see Class--but damned if it doesn't sound like that movie that gets made every 2-3 years here, about the teacher in the inner city? I think the last one of those I saw had Edward James Olmos in it.

Genghis: The Wonder Years

So the second foreign-language Oscar nominee (for last year) rolled around to the local movie house, the Russian flick Mongol, based on the life and times of all around party animal Temujin, better known as Genghis Khan.

KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!

Sorry. Where was I? This is actually more like the first movie in a new superhero franchise, or "The Motorcycle Diaries" for the Oriental set. It shows Temujin from his troubled childhood--where many try to kill him and he is often alone on the Mongolian Steppes--right up to the point where he unites the hordes.

Now, some object to this film on the basis that ol' Genghis was a ruthless warlord. But I don't recall the same objections to "Alexander". Hell, the French are fond of flattering portrayals of Napoleon, and he was much more ruthless and a far worse ruler in his short time than the Khans were.

But we don't hear much about that. Let's face it, the Mongols conquered a whole bunch of people, and raped if the modern DNA evidence is to be believed, and quite a few people haven't gotten over that. So where Alexander, Caesar or even Xerxes or Darius may be portrayed in a positive light, we're not likely to ever here anything nice about Temujin.

Or, weren't until now.

This movie shows the Khan as a semi-reluctant leader, or at least one who was more interested in hanging out with his wife and kids than leading an army, and who unified the hordes to impose some order on the increasingly lawless Mongols.

Sure, why not? All mythical leaders do that, one way or the other.

He's a tough bastard, we're shown that. At the same time, he's curiously attached to his wife, whose attitude is, shall we say, mercenary when it comes to protecting him. Attached? He's downright progressive vis a vis her relations with other men.

It's an interesting angle, and the movie is full of such angles, along with magnificent cinematography, fine acting and a gorgeous cast (particularly Khulan Chullun, who plays Temujin's wife, Borte, and might actually be Mongolian). The action scenes are well done and well shot, meeting with The Boy's approval, but be forewarned, this isn't really a movie about Temujin's conquests. (Two other movies are planned to cover that.)

What that means it that the two hour running time has some lags and some repetitious feeling. Temujin is captured more than Robin. There's a lot of schlepping, like one of the Lord of the Rings movies, only it often seems even more aimless. The narrative has the Khan alone for most of his early life, without followers or much status. A lot is done to emphasize that.

The movie won me over, but it's not for the impatient, and could use 20 minutes trimmed off. So far, I'm inclined to believe the Academy went the right way giving the Oscar to Die Falscher. But I will be looking forward to the second installment.