Parents' Guide to Waltz with Bashir

An unusual mix of journalism, dramatization, and animation, this autobiographical documentary attempts an examination of what war does to its participants, primarily writer and director Folman. Waltz with Bashir's illustrated and animated interviews with fellow veterans of the 1982 Lebanon War give the events and effects discussed a dream-like quality that often represent traumatizing real-life history. It also helps Folman uncover repressed memories of his participation in combat.

With a slow and unwinding pace, this series of conversations sometimes struggles to stay engaging. The animated dream sequences and dramatizations of historical events that intercut many of the interviews become repetitive in places, too, meaning that anyone without a strong interest in this period of history or in psychology might experience diminishing returns. Undoubtedly a labor of love and a painstakingly personal project, Waltz with Bashir does, however, avoid ever feeling self-indulgent on the part of its creator. As its horrifying finale holds the tragic impact of war on ordinary people in the spotlight, it is uncensored and the animation certainly doesn't soften its impact.