A documentary is something that exposes "truth." More percisely, it digs into the "truth" and deepens the understanding of it. In that term, I think Waltz With Bashir is a great documentary even though 99.5% of its footage was animated. It used animation to get audiences closer to the factual and the emotional side of Lebanese Civil War.
An animation may euphemize the horribleness or explicity of an event; however, it enabled Ari Foleman to reveal what actually happened on and off of the battle field. Generally, actual footage of men being killed or any other disturbing footage aren't permitted to show, nonetheless, animation enabled Foleman to explicitly show the footage of soldiers being shot by guerillas and one of the generals watching porno while in his mission. These footage reveal how soldiers were killed constantly at the war and how some of the generals weren't serious about the war. An animation can be greatly used to replace disturbing reality to euphemized animation, and ultimately show what truly happened to audiences.
On the other hand, in Waltz With Bashir, an animation was used to show character's psychological state. For example, when Ari was inside the car (one of the car scenes...) he started to see the bushy battle field and bullets flying in the air instead of snowy woods. This flashback suggests how Ari was afraid when he was marching through the bushy battle field, where he couldn't predict where bullets come from. Another example would be the scene where one of the soldiers grabbed on giant naked lady and float away from the military boat. That figuratively showed the soldier's comfortableness of being off-duty and perhaps a greed for women. The animation helped audience to understand characters' "realistic" emotion through figurative expressions.
The animations used in Waltz With Bashir helped Foleman to show actual events and express characters' most honest feelings--which both emphasize the realistic exhaustion and terror of the incident. Since a documentary is a film that exposes the truth, Waltz With Bashir definitely qualifies as a documentary.
You make a good argument for your point of view but I'm interested in why the other point of view doesn't win out. Getting at emotional truth is something all art does (if it's any good). A documentary purports to do more, I believe. I don't know that it comes down to "truth" more than accuracy. By presenting accurate information, viewers can draw their own conclusions. Do you honestly think the film portrays accurate information about the massacre that took place in the camp? It's a memory piece, and memories aren't the most reliable things.
ReplyDelete