Last year we had the wonderful Persepolis, which offered the unique point of view of an Iranian girl that came of age against the backdrop of the ’79 Islamic Revolution. In keeping with roughly the same time period, we head west to Lebanon and the ’82 war between Israel and the Lebanese and an incident called the Sabra and Shatila massacre that killed hundreds of refugees. Like Persepolis, Waltz with Bashir has a unique animated style and has a compelling story to tell that offers new insights and perspectives from a distinctive point of view. Not only is it the first animated film nominated for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar, but it’s also the first animated documentary I think I’ve ever seen.

The film follows Ari Folman, a successful filmmaker trying to recall his memories of the war, of which he says he has none. He revisits old friends and other people that were part of the Israeli Defense Forces in Lebanon during the conflict and through their remembrances recalls the events leading up the massacre and what happened immediately afterwards. He has one memory in particular of bathing by the seaside of Beirut as flares fell on the city, but no one he talks to seems to remember that. Folman’s explorations test the fallibility and resiliency of memory when confronted with terrible things no 19-year-old, even ones in the infantry, should ever witness. What unfolds are some astounding revelations; an inner journey of the terrible personal cost of wars.

Technically speaking, the film is perfect. My immediate feeling was rotoscoping, an animation style that uses drawings over live footage, but it’s actually a combination of Flash cut-outs and classic animation. Basically the drawings were cut up into pieces and moved around individually like paper stop motion. The result is surprisingly fluid and graceful feeling more real in a way than any type of CG you can render in you computer machine. It’s surrealistic too though, like something that’s going on inside of your head like a memory of your own. The soundtrack is an equally intriguing mix of the old and the new combining 80s pop, classical music and an original score.

By far though the best part of Waltz with Bashir it’s a documentary with a twist. The animation offers a unique kind of gravitas to the memories of the people interviewed because the recreations feel real and that they come from the same place as the memories, as if the subjects are drawing the memory themselves. It can also bring those little exaggerated, fantasy bits of memory forward and make them tangible. If Waltz is about trying to remember, it can also be considered a work about how we remember, how do we deal with memories we don’t want or can’t understand, or don’t want to understand? It’s interesting what Waltz offers, and what it offers may be different for everyone.

As documentaries go, it’s probably just about the most unique one you or I have ever seen. And for movie about war and remembrance, it’s probably one of the strangest journeys you can take, but probably also one of the most honest. I was astounded by how just about every minute of Waltz with Bashir, whether it was by its honesty or the way it pushes buttons of sadness and horror in the viewer that truly makes you stop and think about how low we, as a people, can go. Finally, it’s a top notch effort for animated cinema. It’s another crowning achievement for the fine art of low budget animation, where some of the most elegant storytelling seems to be taking place. You’re unlikely to see another work like this anytime, so seek it out where you can.