Waltz With Bashir (18)

3:10pm Thursday 20th November 2008

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Running time: 87 mins
Rating: Four stars

ARI Folman's film - the first animated documentary - takes as its background the First Lebanon War of the early 1980s. What emerges is quite remarkable. Unlike anything you've seen before - and probably won't see again for years - and innovative in all the right ways.

It begins with a man's recurring nightmare, vividly recalled on screen. An old friend tells Folman of dreaming of being chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night, it's the same number of slavering canine pursuers. Every night, he shoots them. It triggers in Folman a desire to find out about that period of his life in the Israeli army. He interviews old friends and comrades around the world, gradually being drawn deeper into the mystery of his past and the awful world events that culminate with the massacre of men, women and children from refugee camps.

The idea of making a video and then drawing it all again seems madness but works amazingly well. Some may reject watching what must be a therapeutic odyssey for Folman but none can deny the power of the images and ability of Waltz With Bashir to provoke debate and argument about a piece of recent history.