When it isn't just a movie

It's been a little while now since animations stopped being "just for kids". Anime did a good job of dispelling that myth, and Richard Linklater and company have done their bit to keep the art-house animation up and running. Over the past few days, I have bizarrely seen two grown-up animations, both, coincidentally, revolving around the Middle East, and both autobiographical. The first was the delightful, quirky and surprisingly moving "Persepolis". In that case, the animated form was logical; it was, after all, adapted from the director's autobiographical graphic novel. The second, however, was the most alarming, and by far the most inventive use of animation in cinema since "Waking Life" came out; for, with Ari Folman's devastatingly brilliant "Waltz With Bashir", it seems that animations can now also be documentaries.

The purpose behind the animation in "Waltz" was a little unclear at first, though the opening sequence with the vicious dogs charging through an Israeli street was quite spectacular, and no doubt very difficult to do otherwise. Given that much of the film concerns hallucinations and dreams, the surrealism of the animated form is quite effective. Nevertheless, this would have to be the first film to use real audio recordings of interviews accompanied by animated images - and the question is, why? A clue is given when Folman talks to his first interviewee, who agrees to be sketched, but not filmed. Perhaps it was at that point that Folman got the idea for this masterpiece - to sketch, not film? But the initial sketches have evolved into some of the most amazing visuals to hit our screens since, well, "Waking Life". There's nothing even slightly sketchy about this film.

Yet there's another kick in the guts that comes with the animated form of the film, namely that it would be more or less unwatchable if it had used live footage. Indeed, when Folman does switch to real images of the massacre the film concerns, I found myself, though previously glued to the screen, now unable to look. But what is most frightening about this film is that the animation makes it feel, somehow, unreal. When a tank drives down a narrow Lebanese lane-way, crushing the cars that are parked on either side of the street, you think, "That wouldn't happen, would it?" But this film is all about the realities that are too traumatic for us to accept.

When the film finished, my friends and I could not speak. I drove them home in complete silence. My discomfort on leaving the cinema was mostly because the film, though amazing, had still felt like a film. Only it wasn't. It was animated, but every bit of it was real. And that's the problem.