As if the end of January is upon us! How did this happen?! Oh yeah, time happens…I forgot that bit. I hope your January has been filled with lots of kept resolutions and language learning? Here’s to keepin’ on carryin’ on in February!

Now that the end of the month intro is out of the way, let’s get down to business. Film business. World cinema club business. Walts With Bashir business. What did you think?

Personally, I picked this film based on the fact that I’d bought it a few months back in a library sale haul. (It feels like just the other day I was writing about library sales. Am I going that often?) So I knew nothing about the film other than I thought it might be animated from the cover and that it was in Hebrew. I got home, I read the box, I still didn’t know much. So there’s probably no surprise when I say that the film wasn’t what I thought it would be. I was expecting a fiction, perhaps loosely based on a true story, using real events as a backdrop. I wasn’t expecting a documentary. In fact, this may be embarrassing to admit, but I didn’t realise it was a documentary until about 20 minutes in. Yeah, I’m good with film.

However, this really drew me into the film. To think that the stories being told were actually real was quite moving and I believe that the animation gave the documentary a whole new level that this genre sometimes lacks when relying solely on stock footage. So you’re left with a bizarre feeling that you shouldn’t enjoy what you’re watching because of the subject matter but you do enjoy it because it’s so captivating to watch. I’d love to know if there’s more documentaries out there using animation as a means of expression. I found that one of the most powerful things about the film.

It was also an interesting time to encounter Hebrew because I began learning the alphabet at the same time. The language is interesting (what language isn’t!) and sounds really beautiful spoken so from a language perspective, I enjoyed gaining some exposure to Hebrew at this time when it’s suddenly fallen into my life a little bit.

Be sure to check out next month’s film, Bad Education, which we’ll be discussing at the end of February. It’s gonna be good.

What did you think of Waltz With Bashir? Did you enjoy the animation being used in line with real audio interviews? I’d love to read your thoughts on this in the comments.