This is a film which has intrigued me since the reviews started coming in for it at Cannes (for those aside from the tens of loyal, hardened devotees I have, Cannes and myself have a love-hate relationship - I like following it but generally end up disliking the films on show) and I'm quite happy to say it's the best new release I've seen in a couple of months.
The set up is that this is an "animated documentary", which follows the filmmaker Ari Folman's attempts to discover what happened to him as he cannot remember witnessing a massacre whilst serving in the Israeli army in Lebanon in the early 1980s. Folman uses a technique called rotoscoping (most famously used in the A-Ha video for Take on Me in the 80s and more recently in the Richard Linklater films Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly) which is where you trace over something which you have already filmed normally.
The style of the film suits the dreamlike quality of the memories and fantasies/visual metaphors which he is exploring and serves the material very well. As a story it is well structured as you are drip-fed more information about what actually went on and (strangely, less importantly) what his role in all of this was. Whenever you see the people in close up or any detail it's quite obviously an animated film but there are moments (especially in the extremely atmospheric recreation of the massacre) which make you forget you are watching an animated film.
At the very end real footage from the aftermath is used and it was absolutely necessary to close the film on this note. While it had been an interesting watch it had lacked an emotional punch, reaffirming to the audience that this is something which really happened and was absolutely terrible was not being put across by the animation immediately prior to its use. It adds a level of gravitas and poignancy to the close of the film which wouldn't have been there otherwise.
This was a very interesting way to spend 90 minutes both stylisitically and intellectually. At times there are a montage to rock music or two too many and the very real sounds (especially smoking or swallowing) taken didn't match up well with the animation presented. A tiny detail that takes you out of the moment and makes you aware again you're both watching a film and watching a film that has been drawn. It is in general quality filmmaking though, which I would recommend to anyone with broad political interests or someone who can handle the prospect of an animated film approaching a serious subject. It's certainly one of the more unique films you will see in the cinema this year.